Chapter 2

The rest of the week at school was quiet, though there was some undercurrent of change in the halls and lunchroom. The Antis seem to have gotten a few converts from the Nobodies, while I was getting friendly waves or greetings from people who had ignored me before, most of them Types. I even had Joey D’Angelo come over to talk with me, saying I should come and sit with the Ts.

“You are what, a three point eight, maybe even a Tee four? You should be over with us, man. Billie too, she got the flip and she’s got that weak pyrokinesis, so she’s a three.” Joey was a speedster, able to move unbelievably quick, and he had the invulnerability you would need for that power, along with strength, though not Miracle Girl strong. He might be able to lift a bus, but she could juggle busses!

He was also almost as bad, in his way, as Alan Farmer had been on the other end of the spectrum. Joey thought unchanged humans were beneath his notice and barely tolerated T2s. If Billie had not had the PK, even with it being weak, she would have been a T2. Still, from what I had seen, he was not a bully and his distaste for others was a learned response, so I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Billie and I were still sitting with the Nobodies at lunchtime, not out of any misplaced sense of social standing or even any type of activism, but because we were creatures of habit. This is where we sat on the first day of school and this is where we were still sitting. It was a Nobody table and the cast changed by the day. We were nodding acquaintances with most, but not all, and friends with even fewer now that we had lost Chris, and Milt had left.

I glanced over at Billie and she looked undecided, so I put him off, saying we might check it out and see what it was like.

The thing was, even if I didn’t like Joey much, and I didn’t, we had already been getting the eye, with people giving us a sort of buffer space and not actually sitting next to us. I had noticed it when they thought it was just Billie who had changed, but now that they knew I had changed too, the space had grown. We weren’t really wanted here at the Nobody’s table anymore.

Rumors. Oh, my, god. One thing I had not anticipated was the rumor mill kicking into high gear. I mean, I guess I should have, this is high school and a good rumor was better than a free joint. I had just never been the topic of a rumor before now, and I found that it was pretty damn uncomfortable to have people point and talk about you.

I was a budding rogue super, and I was targeting the Antis, wanting to kill them off, one by one. The reason I was sitting at the Nobody tables was that I couldn’t stand to sit next to heroes I would be fighting someday.

I was a newly emergent TK who had snapped when I saw the love of my life being accosted in the lunchroom. (When I heard that one, I made kissy faces at Billie as a joke and got punched in the shoulder for my efforts.)

I was a mentalist/mind controller who had forced Alan Farmer to accost a girl just so I could get him arrested.

Billie and I had been lovers when she was a boy and we were still lovers today. Or not still lovers, but she was still in love with me but I only liked the D.

There were more, but the rest were so far out there that even the person who started them didn’t actually believe it, I am certain!

The problem with rumors is there is almost always a subset of students who believe them, even if they make no sense. Some of the Nobodies had Anti leanings, others had Type leanings, and some were truly neutral. The neutral ones just ignored us, like always, but I was getting the cold shoulder from some of the others.

I had one girl, a T2 with bunny ears, tell me I was going to hell for fornicating with Billie because I knew her when she was Billy. Billy couldn’t help turning into Billie, you see, but I knew him before he became her, so if I fornicated with her, it was spiritual homosexuality and relationship incest, and I was going to hell.

I had a hard time keeping a straight face when I watched her ears twitch and track people passing by in the hallway.

“Does the same hold true for you? If a boy who knew you in sixth grade wants to date you now, is it bestiality?” I asked politely, trying not to smirk.

“I am not my ears, you jerk! You are so disgusting!” she huffed, then hopped away, leaving me standing there with a smile on my face.

Okay, okay, she didn’t hop, she stomped away, but the visual was somehow the same.

The Antis were not going to lay down and just take the loss of their leader. There were bumps in the hallway, shoves from behind, thrown objects and other annoying, but otherwise harmless, harassment. Thankfully we have pretty sharp teachers at our school, because two of them were caught trying to set up a more harmful attack, and three more were suspended for conspiracy, of all things!

The three had been planning to goad me into a fight and record the whole thing, altering the recording to make me the bad guy. The teacher overheard enough to make her watch carefully, and she was able to put a stop to it just before it escalated to something worse.

Things calmed down after that, and the week ended, more or less, peacefully. Who knew about the next week, but I hoped the weekend would help to calm folks down.

My parents didn’t tell me that I would be getting a visit on Saturday morning, probably because they knew me too well. I would have been excited and tossed and turned all night, been exhausted the next day to boot!

Saturday morning, we had finished breakfast and I was contemplating calling Billie to see what she had planned, when there was a knock at the front door. Dad waved me off when I went to get up and answer it, taking care of it himself since he was already up. Or so I thought ... it turned out he was expecting our visitor!

Diamante was a Hero from Laredo. Her family had been Mexican, living in Nuevo Laredo, just across the border, before the unification of North America into the United States of North America. The city had also unified as if there had never been a border between the two, and reclaimed Laredo as the name.

She was tall, several inches above six feet, and heavily muscled like an Olympic Bodybuilder. She had flight, healing, and the ability to generate an unbelievable thirty-five million lumens of light. That would be something like a midday sun at midnight, and would blind anyone who looked directly at her if she lit up unexpectedly. In addition, she had fine-grain control over her light and could shine like a star or focus that light down to a spot barely a millimeter across. That kind of light, focused that small, generates enough heat to mimic a nuclear blast and turn a human body to cinders in a flash.

There were rumors she had an odd mix of precog and distance sight too, but only when it came to her light beams. She was said to be the second best ‘shot’ of any Hero in the League today, being beaten only by Zero, the Hero that never, ever missed a target.

“Welcome to our home, Diamante. I am Steve Youder, and this is my wife, Beth, and the reason you are here, my son, Mike.” Dad said, ushering her into the room.

She was in costume, a white, sleeveless, leather-looking body suit with a white domino mask, but it didn’t hide that she was a gorgeous, seriously built Latina! With a smile, she shook hands all around but, when she pulled her mask off, she changed, somehow. She didn’t slump, or shrink, but somehow, she seemed less imposing, less stiff and her smile was warmer, more engaging.

She laughed at our expressions; her grin infectious. “I changed, right? Everyone tells me that. They say I am a little cold, and stiff, and not all that friendly looking when I am in uniform, and that when I take off my mask and relax, it is like a different person. I don’t know why, except, maybe, it is that I take my job so seriously. I am one of a dozen League staffers who does not also have another job. I am full-time at the Hero business and I think I am pretty good at it too.”

We all agreed. There had never been a scandal or question about her actions that I had ever heard. She had done her best every time she was out and no one, other than the crazies and Antis, had a bad word to say about her.

“Not that I am not thrilled to meet you, I would kill for a picture with you, but ... why are you here? I mean, is there a problem or something?” I asked, not wanting her to leave, but feeling a little anxious anyway.

Dad laughed and nudged mom. “Told you. Clueless,” he said to her in a stage whisper, making me blush. Not in front of the hero, dad, come on!

“Diamante volunteered to be your flight instructor and safety guide today.” Dad said, looking to the Hero for confirmation.

She nodded and grinned at me. “That’s right. The local office put the word out and, since I had no fixed plans this morning, I thought it would be really cool to take a new flier on his first trip. It is ... magical, really, the first time you soar across the sky! I wish I had someone to guide me when I first flew. It is only because I have this healing factor that I even survived the landing!” she said with a laugh, shaking her head.

“First, before we leap into the sky, let’s talk. Tell me what you have learned about flying so far. I need to know your basic level of knowledge and what you might have to unlearn! You’d be surprised at the misconceptions people have.”

What followed was two hours of a very genial, but unmistakably professional interrogation. She seemed pleased by the basic aerodynamics knowledge I had picked up, happy that I was at least passingly familiar with the laws and regulations concerning powered human flight and, finally, she pointed out several things I missed when it came to the realities of flight.

Like, what happened if I lost consciousness? Did I realize that at speed, having a shield in front of me is not enough, and that my ‘tube’ like I used on Alan Farmer, would become a vacuum tube when the air passing by sucked the oxygen out the open end? All of these things had to be taken into consideration! She pointed out a dozen things I needed to try to develop, like a TK shield that would filter air, but still let it through, and a personal shield that would protect me even when unconscious.

As for how to do those things, she shrugged. “I’m a disco queen with no Telekinesis, Mike, sorry. You need to train with someone who has your abilities, or close, and that means the school in Austin, probably.”

The first thing we did when the actual training started, was to try and better determine the scope of my abilities.

“Okay, from what I have learned from other TKs, when you lift something, you actually push against something else, like the ground, for instance. Most TKs don’t have enough strength to have to worry about it, but it can be a real issue if you are not careful.

“For instance, I want you to float for me,” she asked, then waited until I was a foot off the ground. She asked for, and received, an empty soda can from the garbage. Setting it on the ground, she guided me forward until I was over the can and I watched as it deformed and flattened, as though I had stood on it.

I was shocked. I had never even considered, thinking it was more like magic and it worked because, you know, handwavium!

“See that? You weigh in at what, about one sixty-five? Now let’s see what you can lift and still be floating yourself. Lift me,” she directed, spreading her arms and smiling at me.

I reached out and was shocked that I had to strain a little to get her off the ground. Once up, it was easier, but it was as if she had been glued to the driveway.

“I am unusually dense, and my body weight is right at four hundred and seventy-five pounds. How did that feel? Think you can hold us both up and still lift more?”

“It was as if you were stuck to the concrete at first, but once you are in the air, it’s not a problem at all.”

“Steve, Beth? You want to play?” she asked with a grin and, when both nodded, she gestured to me.

I was able to lift both of them, again with the hardest part being the initial lift. Once I had them in the air, it was no strain at all.

“Good, good! Same deal?” she asked and, when I nodded, she made a gesture, hands out flat, palms down, and made a patting motion as if guiding me like a helicopter landing. I set everyone down gently, keeping a ‘grip’ on mom and dad until they were stable.

“Definitely a Type Four, Mike. Most TKs have a limit of a few pounds, the rare one can lift himself and there are only three hero-strength TKs that I know of. I have the feeling you can lift a lot more than just the four of us. I am excited to see what the school finds when they test you! You may not be the strongest TK Hero, but you are already head and shoulders above the Type Threes I have seen reported.

“Okay, so that was good. One more demonstration and we can get to the fun stuff. First, Steve, can you get me two more cans? Thanks! Mike, lift me again, please, and hold me about three feet off the ground. Yes, perfect. Okay, now I want you to try and feel the area beneath me, where your TK is pushing against the ground. This is important, so take your time.

“Got it? Okay, how big is that spot. About a foot, okay, make it smaller. Make it an inch, if you can, then move me so I am over the first can your dad set up.”

I did as she asked, keeping her ground point to an inch, and moving her slowly over the can. I was finding it harder to make her balance, to keep her stable, with the smaller ‘footprint’. As the footprint intersected the can, the can shot across the garage and, rather than chase it, I grabbed the second can with my TK and held it steady. The footprint caused the can to completely collapse in on itself until the aluminum was actually wrapped around, surrounding the one-inch footprint, the can destroyed.

“Good job, Mike. See what happened? My almost five hundred pounds, concentrated into an area of a single inch, destroyed that can, and much faster and more completely than our earlier test. Okay, ready for part two? Spread out the footprint to be as wide as you can make it without it covering your folks. Okay? How wide? Great! Now, bring the second can.”

We were all fascinated to watch the second can crinkle a bit, but not even really deform all that much except for the center sidewall, where the aluminum was thinnest and farthest from the folded ends. All five hundred pounds, spread across the width and most of the length of the driveway, was barely more than atmospheric pressure!

“Set me down again and let’s talk about it, Mike. What you saw here was practical physics. Five hundred pounds of pressure per square inch is significantly higher pressure than a pound per square inch over five hundred inches. What does that tell you?”

“A lot! I mean, wow, I never, it never even occurred to me. That opens the door to a lot of possibilities for me. I think that you are talking about flying though, so I can totally see how I could damage things, maybe hurt or kill someone just by flying overhead, if I wasn’t careful! An inch-wide footprint would cut through stuff down here!” I said, shocked by the thought.

“I have to admit, I thought it was silly to get someone here to teach me to fly. I was grown up, I would be careful ... no, I would have been a disaster. Sorry, dad, for doubting and thank you too!”

“You are absolutely right, Mike, and it is good you realized. So many kids don’t really understand the full implications of their powers, so that is why the schools have mandatory classes and harsh discipline for power users.

“Okay, that aside, let’s get back to the lesson. When flying, you need to be in the habit of spreading your footprint over as wide an area as your TK allows. If you could somehow have a one-mile square footprint for every pound you carry, then I would encourage it. That is a bit of stretch, I imagine, but as big as you can reasonably do is what we call a best practice.

“You should think about more subtle differences too. I read a report where a TK said he could use atmospheric pressure to ease the issue, but I am not sure how that works. It will be something to ask at the school.”

She gave me a pretty thorough safety talk about the dos and don’ts of flying in and around an inhabited area, then sent me in to get heavy jeans, jacket, gloves, hat and some goggles. We were going flying!

I had a lot of practice floating. Standing, sitting like on a chair, laying down, even spinning around, so the transition to flying wasn’t a huge stretch. It was a different feeling though, using the TK to push me along, faster and faster. Then, as Diamante became more comfortable with my control, we went higher and higher, topping out at about eight thousand feet, according to the hero.

It was AMAZING! And cold. Amazing and cold. It was fall time, after all, so even in south Texas, the temps got down to reasonable numbers. At over five thousand feet in the air though, it was a whole different world.

We flew slowly over the town at about twenty-five hundred feet, the lowest she would allow me to fly over people. I was not even registered yet, so only having her along allowed me to fly over inhabited areas at all.

The nice thing about the height was that spreading my footprint to cover a square mile was a non-event, easy as pie.

We flew over my school, over the County building with its big dome, but skirted the airport completely. We even got to pace a news chopper, but far enough away they couldn’t really get a good shot at my face. It was so freakin cool!

We only spent an hour in the air, all told, and it flew by feeling like just seconds, let me tell you. I was disappointed and a little tired when we got back, but so thrilled to have done it at all.

Diamante had to go, she did have some afternoon plans, but said she would try and drop by next weekend if she could get away, and we could do some speed tests. I had to promise her to not try it alone and, if my parents let me fly, to stay away from populated areas unless it was an emergency.

I got my picture with her, and dad snapped it when she kissed me on the cheek! I WAS KING STUD OF THE WHOLE WORLD!

Okay, maybe not exactly King Stud, and maybe not the whole world, but I sure felt like it. I was way stoked, and I couldn’t wait to show it to Billie.

Mom and dad agreed to let me fly locally, but only over the park and open fields around town, and my ceiling, the highest I could fly, was one hundred feet. Higher than most local trees, but lower than the top of the water tower antennae, was how mom described it. Oh, and I had to promise, on fear of suppression, not to take anyone else up until I was better trained.

After Diamante left, I ran up to my room and checked the local maps. McAllen had grown quite a bit in the surge after The Fall wiped out the coast. In fact, we had become a seaside town and they had even opened a few resorts. Our beaches were crap, it takes time for them to build up, even with the help of the government, but you could swim and hang out, so that was good too.

We were on the south-west side of town, so only two miles from the beach where the shore dipped into what was a shallow valley before the tidal waves scoured it clear. The water had wiped out a large section of the Rio Grande river, swallowing most of the old Santa Ana National Wildlife refuge, and our house was in a development that pushed us right up against what was left.

Sometimes I like to sit and try to imagine what it had been like before, back when Reynosa was in another country instead of just being a neighbor city. Hell, most everyone in McAllen supposedly spoke Spanish back before The Fall, so it was no surprise, with the border a thing of the past, that the language here was mostly Spanish with some English thrown in.

Sure, officially, the language of the USNA was English, since the US and Canada had spoken it, but some northern states, like Quebec, also had French while some southern states, like Guanajuato and Zacatecas had Spanish, but English still ruled as the international language of business.

Did you know they lost four whole states? Four! Baja California, Baja Sur, Sinaloa and Nayarit. We had to learn about them in Geography. Man, the old globes and world maps sure look strange these days. So much more land back then, but we had more people to so maybe it is a wash.

Anyway, I was looking to see where I could actually fly in the area and, if I was careful, I could almost fly to Billie’s house, though I would have to walk a couple of blocks. I had to skirt way around the built-up areas, and it would probably take me as long as it took to bike there, but I was tempted anyway. I was like a little kid who just figured out what his willie was for and wanted to play with it all the time.

I went online and ordered a set of polarizing safety glasses that I could just hang on my belt. I was going to try and figure a way to create a little utility belt for useful things. Things I might need if I am out and about, like goggles for a passenger, a wrist mounted GPS unit and so on. I would really like the heads-up display goggles, but my allowance wasn’t going to cover that. Maybe Christmas?

Turned out Billie wasn’t feeling up to doing much, she had her monthlies. I felt bad that I had to ask what the hell a monthly was, and embarrass her. She still was not all that sanguine about some parts of being a girl now. Sorry, a woman, as she was so kind to remind me. There was no reason for her to yell through the phone though, that was rude.

I spent the afternoon flying around over what was left of the Santa Ana, and over the coast. I even went out to sea just a bit, but I admit I got nervous without some kind of life preserver. I could swim okay, but not, like my idol, Prince Namor. The short flight did fill my head with ideas though, and I set down on a deserted, rocky section of beach to think.

I could probably create a bubble, or a sort of PK submersible, that would let me travel under water, but I would need air, so it would have to have an air shaft down to wherever I was. Then the question would be how to keep water out of the top of the shaft. Diamante and Billie had both mentioned something about filtering the air, and it made me wonder about that too. Could I actually extract oxygen from the water that surrounded me?

I would have some real doozy questions for the science teacher next week, and maybe there would be some information online that I could use, though finding anything online would mean you needed a starting point. I would have to see if I could get access to the League data, I had read that students could have some rudimentary access to their digital library.

Speaking of going under water, it made me wonder how much, if any, of the Ayers Rock-sized meteor fragment that hit the Gulf of Mexico had been recovered. Were they working with the fragments, trying to decipher the PRIME dust? In school, they talked about the richness of the asteroid belt and how some high-level supers were actually bringing asteroids back, full of rare metals and valuable chemicals. How cool would that be?

I flew back home in time for dinner, and we discussed what I had done during the day, the training and the exploring. I discussed my thoughts on underwater work, even salvage for the drowned cities and asteroid chunks. Dad thought it was a neat idea, but was sure underwater salvage was dangerous. He insisted he didn’t have enough hair left to deal with a teenage son who flies, and is going to want to drive soon, without adding in more dangerous activities. He’s a funny guy, my pop

Mom had to egg him on too, saying that I would probably be dating soon as well. And I thought she liked me!

Sunday was a quiet day and Monday dawned overcast and dreary. It didn’t fill my heart with joyous tidings, let me tell you. I was worried about what the day would bring, but was pleasantly surprised. It seemed the weekend really had allowed things to calm down a bit, as I didn’t get any real guff from anyone.

Billie and I sat with the Ts for the first time and, other than a few guys hitting on Billie, something she was definitely uncomfortable with, they seemed pretty normal. Well, as normal as you can get for teens! Billie sort of scooted closer to me, as if we were ‘together’ and the guys seemed to get the idea.

Did you know that PRIME Type 2s, specifically the trans shift T2s, were like a fetish thing? People really got all hot and bothered by the idea of sleeping with a girl who used to be a guy, or a guy who used to be a girl. It gave them some kind of sexual charge and they seemed very open about it too, as if it was perfectly normal.

Let me give you a hint ... it ain’t. Normal, I mean. The change ain’t normal and the people that turn others into sex objects for something they can’t control, are not normal. Billie was all kinds of freaked out over the whole idea, and told me all about it. She had guys and girls both asking her out and she was a whole lot skeeved about it, let me tell you! I don’t blame her at all.

After lunch, I had science, and I arrived early to catch Mr. Mueller. I asked him about ways to separate oxygen from water, but learned that it was an electrical process called electrolyzing, and I would have to carry a buttload of batteries to break down enough water to make it useful. It would be easier to carry air tanks, and just plan an emergency conduit to the surface if needed.

He wasn’t aware of any way to use pressure to force the molecules to separate, or the water at the bottom of the ocean would be constantly splitting and turning to gas. Huh ... I guess I didn’t think that through, did I?

Well, not every idea was going to be a homerun, right? He got me sidetracked just before the bell rang, talking about the immense pressures and how those affected everything you did underwater. That would be an awesome way to test the strength of my TK shields, by building one underwater and seeing how deep it could go. How I was going to get one down that deep was a whole other question though. Man, the guys on TV make this stuff look easy!

The whole week went fine, which seemed to be a record so far, and on Friday, after school, Billie hit me with a big one.

“So, Mike. We’re, like, best friends, right?” She asked, hesitantly. She was sitting on my bed, one leg crossed over the other and she seemed fascinated with the toe of her tennis shoe for some reason.

“Since we were five,” I agreed, getting a weird feeling in my gut.

“I need to go to the League office tomorrow. I made an appointment,” she said, drawing it out. I knew there was more, but it looked like I was going to have to pull it out of her, line by line.

“You have an appointment. For what, exactly?”

She sighed, and put both feet flat on the floor, then leaned forward so both of her elbows were on her knees and her head was in her hands. It muffled her voice a bit since it was now directed at the carpet.

“It’s, well, its girl stuff.”

“Okay, but what does this have to do with me? Is your mom busy? Need me to ask my folks to give you a ride?”

“Ah ... this is harder that I thought. I want you to go with me, but you can’t go to the appointment with me. It’s about, um, well, dating and stuff.”

Yep, not a good feeling at all. I prayed I was wrong, but decided a joke would give her an easy out if I was right, or a segue if I was wrong.

“Ah, I get it! I am a handsome fellow, and fairly intelligent with good genes. I will probably be classified a Tee Four, so I have a bright future. You could do worse.”

Her head snapped up so fast I was worried for a second, then she rolled her eyes and punched me in the shoulder.

“You are such a dick. Okay, so, fine, if I was interested in guys, you might be the kind I would go for if I didn’t know you so well. I saw you poop your pants in third grade when you got sick, and you insisted on showing me your wiener in fifth grade when you got it caught in your zipper. I could not date you, no way and no how, it would be like ... like incest or something.”

Oh, thank the powers that be! I agreed a hundred percent. She was cute as a girl, but it was Billy!

“You are missing out, but I understand, and I won’t hold it against you. Seriously, not going to hold it against you, stop asking,” I joked, smiling at her and getting half a grin back. We were good. “So, what is the appointment about, then?”

“I want to talk to someone that is not family and not you. I want to talk to someone who has been through this, about how I am having problems adjusting all the way. I mean, I can see a guy and think he is cute, but I just can’t make that leap into actually, like, dating a guy. I don’t get all, you know, hot and stuff, about guys, I still like girls. I guess I just need to know it is okay, that it is normal.”

“So, it’s not the girls liking girls thing that worries you, but the sex change thing not changing your liking of girls?”