When I posted the opening to Super-Her last month, I ended up reading all of what I’d written of the story. Which isn’t a lot, honestly, just about 10,000 words of prose and a bunch of notes for what was to come. But I really like it! So here’s what comes next, following Lindsey’s awful rope-snap moment…
This is gonna hurt, Lindsay thought as the high twenties zipped past her. She gritted her teeth into the wind and went spreadeagled. Greater surface area meant more places for the air to catch on her, slowing her descent. Some part of her managed to count the stories as she hurtled past, and she knew she’d just passed nineteen when suddenly the world went massively still and so quiet that the silence roared in her ears. A warm, golden light surrounded her.
For just a moment, she was convinced she’d died.
Then her other senses kicked in. Strong arms encircled her. Something like commingled musk and lavender filled the air. Before she could do or say anything, the stories flew by her again, this time in reverse: Nineteen, twenty-five, thirty, higher. She could see the dangling tail of her grappling line as she soared higher and she thought, Oh no and opened her mouth to say it, but it was too late — she was now at the roof, and a pair of shadowy figures standing at the helicopter pad suddenly broke off and turned in her direction.
“No!” Lindsay said, struggling against the arms that held her. “No!”
The two figures broke apart, running for opposite ends of the roof. One of them leapt off and ignited a personal jetpack, which threw off hot blue sparks against the black night sky. The other one clambered into the helicopter.
“No!” Lindsay screamed now, still struggling. “Don’t! Don’t!”
“Don’t worry, miss,” said the man holding her, the man who glowed, who smelled so good, who was ruining everything. “I have it all covered.”
The arms released her and Lindsey tumbled to the roof of the GTT. Long blonde hair — it was a wig, to help disguise her real identity — fell into her eyes and when she shoved it away, she saw a figure in skintight purple and red with a flowing crimson cape launch itself off the roof and directly at the fleeing jetpacker.
“No, no, no,” she muttered to herself, eyeing the one in the helicopter. Maybe… Maybe this would still work out…
Three weeks. Three weeks of detective work — both online and off — was about to get flushed right down the toilet. Unless…
The flying figure grabbed the jetpacker. They were still close enough to the rooftop that Lindsay could hear the captee’s surprised shriek and the sudden high-pitched whine of the jetpack as it went into overdrive. After a moment, it gave up and sputtered to death.
“Don’t drop me!” the wearer screamed, kicking and flailing, and making it more difficult to hold him. “Don’t drop me!”
“I would never even imagine it,” the flying man said in a soothing, almost-injured voice.
Take your time, Lindsay thought. Take your time… Keeping one eye on the floating duo and the other on the helicopter, she felt along her belt until she found the third pouch from the left. Popped it open.
The guy in the helicopter had the rotors moving. Lindsey knew that there was pretty much no chance of this night going down the way she’d planned, but she had to at least try to salvage it.
She palmed the little self-propelled GPS tracker, then fired it at the helicopter. The tracker’s tiny electromagnetic thruster could only carry it about the length of a football field, but that was enough to get it to the other end of the roof, where it clicked into place along the fuselage of the helicopter.
Still flailing, the guy who’d tried to escape by jetpack cried out as he was dumped unceremoniously on the rooftop. The caped figure sped overhead, aiming for the helicopter, which was just lifting off from the helipad.
“No!” Lindsey shouted. “It’s OK! I’ve got it all—!”
“No worries!” the cape shouted back to her. “I have it well in hand!”
“Hand” turned out to be a misnomer. He never even got within arms-length of the ‘copter. Instead, he aimed two piercing white beams of heat from his eyes at the chopper’s rear rotors. They fused almost instantly and the chopper wobbled back into place on the helipad. A moment later, the erstwhile pilot stumbled out of the cockpit and raised his hands.
The caped figure glided over to her, arms folded over his chest as he looked down at her from a few feet up. “Do you have any sort of handcuffs or ropes or—“
“You jackhole!” Lindsay yelled. “Who do you think you are?”
He landed and stood before her with arms akimbo, his stupid blond hair and his stupid shining white teeth practically glowing. “You are the Huntress. I am the Magne—“
“I know who you are,” she snarled. “And I’m the Hunter, not the Huntress.”
He tried again. “I represent the Teen—“
“And you,” Lindsay snapped, jabbing a finger at him, “are the guy who just ruined almost a month of research, investigation, and set-up. I don’t care about the Teen Team or about your studly powers, OK?”
“But… ”
“No buts. I already rejected your unfash Teen Teamers four months ago when they tried to get me to join their group. I wasn’t interested then, and I don’t want to hear about it now. Got it, Magnetar?”
The Magnetar tilted his head as though confused. Now that they were both on equal footing, Lindsay realized that he wasn’t much taller than she was. And she knew from news reports that he was a teenager, but somehow on 3V he’d always come across as older looking. In person, he looked young. Almost innocent.
Which didn’t stop her from being pissed at him.
“I’ve been stalking these guys for weeks,” Lindsay said.
“You have?” the guy nearby asked.
“Shut up.” Lindsay did, in fact, have a bunch of zip-cords in the belt-pouch nestled against the small of her back, under her cape. She zip-corded the guy at her feet — wrists and ankles — then stepped out of earshot. The Magnetar — annoyingly — followed her by gliding, as though walking were too much work.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “They were stealing from this building. Weren’t you here to stop them?”
“No, you moron. I was here to watch them. And then follow them back to their boss.”
The Magnetar blinked. “Their boss?”
“Yeah. Their boss. These guys have been breaking into labs, hospitals, and — now — think tanks for a couple of months. I smash-hacked the CCPD database—“
“You broke the law?”
“—and found their fingerprints on file. They’re breaking and entering way above their pay-grade. Someone’s financing them. Planning for them. I want to know who and why.”
“So you were going to let them go?”
“Duh.” She shoved past him and stalked over to the would-be helicopter pilot, who by now had dropped to his knees, his hands clasped behind his head. Lindsay had to admit that a part of her wished the bad guys would give up so easily when it was just her. If she had decided to take down both of these guys, she would have worked up a sweat. They wouldn’t have surrendered so readily. But to the doucheus with the godly powers… ?
He had followed her over and loomed again, floating, silent, as though used to people worshipping him. Maybe women especially.
“You ruined it all,” Lindsay told him again. “So if you’re waiting for my gratitude, you’re not going to get it. So go back to the Teen Team’s satellite headquarters or wherever you came from and keep out of Charm City from now on. I’ve got it covered.”
“You were going to die.” He didn’t say it triumphantly or snarkily. It was worse than that — he said it matter-of-factly.
“I had slowed my descent,” she told him, chewing each word. “I still had time to deploy my backup line or my BASE parachute.”
She enjoyed the gobsmacked expression on his face.
His stammered “I—I—“ was even better.
“Just go away,” she told him. “And when you think about coming back, don’t.”
The Magnetar considered this for a moment, then nodded once and began to drift upwards. Lindsay zip-corded the pilot.
“Hey! Too tight!” he whined.
“Shut up,” Lindsay told him, and kneed him in the gut. It accomplished two things — it shut him up and it made her feel better.
“I understand you’re angry,” the Magnetar called down to her, “and I hope you’ll feel friendlier the next time we meet.”
“Won’t be a next time,” she muttered, already thinking of how to approach interrogating her two captives.
“I can’t go away,” the Magnetar added. “I live here now.”
“You what?” Lindsay looked up, but he was gone.
(This piece comes from my newsletter, which goes out monthly. For more stuff like this, and to get it first, sign up here!)