Action Figures - Issue One: Secret Origins (13 page)

Poor Sara.

Nuts, she’s looking at me. I must be broadcasting pity like a radio tower.

It’s not exactly what I expected in a satellite office for the country’s top super-team—not that I could say what I was expecting. It looks so...ordinary. It could be an office for a real estate broker or a lawyer or a travel agent.

“This is it?” Matt says. “I don’t see a sign or anything.”

“This is it,” Sara says. She leads us inside, which is equally mundane and unimpressive. A woman that I have to call a plain old everyday secretary smiles at us from behind her boring desk. All this normal is highly
suspicious.

“Can I help you?” the secretary says.

“Uh, hi. I’m Sara Danvers? I have an appointment?”

“Yes, we’ve been expecting you. If you’ll wait a minute, please?”

She doesn’t pick up her phone or press any buttons, but a few minutes later the door behind her opens and Mindforce enters. His costume is less costumey than a lot of super-hero get-ups, which makes me feel a bit better about our lame wardrobes. Heck, I’m positive his pants are nothing more than black military pants from an army surplus store and his jacket looks a lot like a lab coat. He wears a form-fitting cowl over his head and face, but the goggles he wears in public are hanging around his neck. He greets Sara warmly. I instantly like him ten times better than Concorde.

“Hello again, Sara,” he says, shaking Sara’s hand. “How are you?”

“Okay,” she says unconvincingly. “Uh, I hope it’s cool my friends came with me. They wanted to meet you.”

“Of course. Hello, everyone, I’m Mindforce. Obviously,” he says, and he shakes our hands in turn (Matt and Stuart, he greets by name, which thrills Matt to no end). “Sara and I have some private business to take care of, but when we’re finished, I can take you on a tour of our headquarters if you’d like.”

Matt pounces on the offer. “Oh my God yeah!”

“Do we have to do anything? For security reasons, I mean?” I say. “To make sure we’re not precocious super-villains or shape-changing alien invaders?”

Don’t laugh. They’ve had problems with that
kind of thing before. For realsies.

“You’re all set. Miss Hannaford cleared you before she let you in the office,” Mindforce says, and the secretary gives us a sly wink.

“She’s a psionic,” Sara says with a heavy
duh
subtext.

“A Class Four, like me,” Mindforce says. “Empathy, telepathy, telekinesis, and psychometry.”

“Psychometry?”

“She can read psychic impressions people have left on physical objects,” Matt explains before Mindforce can. Mindforce cocks an impressed eyebrow. “I’m kind of a super-hero geek.”

“Then the tour should be right up your alley,” Mindforce says, and he gestures at the door in the back of the room. “Come on.”

We follow him down a short hallway to an elevator with no buttons. He places his bare hand against a panel in the wall. It flickers briefly with a pale green light.

“Palm print reader?” Matt asks.

“DNA scanner,” Mindforce says. “Also reads pulse rate and body temperature in case someone tries to use my severed hand to bypass security.”

None of us are brave enough to ask if he’s joking.

The doors slide open and we step into a cylindrical elevator that’s more like a miniature subway car. It has seats.

“HQ,” he says. I barely feel the elevator drop, but I definitely feel it when we change direction.

“Are we going sideways?” Missy says.

“We are,” Mindforce says, “quite a distance. The
office is for casual public interaction. We conduct all our serious business at our headquarters.”

“But that’s, like, at the edge of town,” Stuart says.

“That’s right.”

“You have your own secret subway tunnel under Kingsport?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Coooooooooooool.”

“I bet that was an interesting presentation to the zoning board of appeals,” I say, and Mindforce looks at me funny. “My dad’s in construction. I know more about zoning that I ever wanted to.”

“Good to know. I’ll call you if we ever decide to put a second tunnel in. And if we actually go to get permits for it,” he adds with a conspiratorial smile.

The end of the line is the sub-basement of Protectorate HQ, which is as unimpressive as the building we just left; it’s a big unfinished basement. There are crates and boxes against one wall and a freight elevator opposite the passenger elevator (is it still an elevator if it goes horizontally?).

We go up two floors and Mindforce takes us to the common area, which could pass as a trendy Manhattan loft apartment (as seen on TV; I’ve never actually been in a trendy Manhattan loft apartment).

“Please, make yourself at home,” Mindforce says. “Help yourself to anything in the fridge. Except the beer. We’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Stuart naturally makes a beeline for the refrigerator. It’s like the fridge in any office break room, right down to the half-eaten chocolate cake on the second shelf wishing someone named Nata a Hap Birt. I don’t
know why but I find it oddly comforting, like it’s a sign that becoming a super-hero doesn’t mean you have to give up being a normal person.

Not that I’m still thinking about becoming super-hero, you understand. Old news there.

Sara suppresses a shudder as she enters the Protectorate’s medical bay, her contempt for hospitals and hospital-like environments surfacing.

“So. Sara,” Mindforce says. “How are you doing? Really?”

“Were you reading my mind before?”

“Your tone of voice and your body language. Remember, I’m also a professional psychologist.”

“Right.” She sighs. “I don’t think I’m doing all that great.”

Mindforce invites her to sit on an examination table. It’s padded, not one of those coldly clinical steel jobs, not like a mad scientist’s slab. It’s a minor comfort. He gives Sara an appraising once-over.

“What’s the problem?” he says.

“I can’t...I’m having problems blocking other people out.”

“Have you been doing the exercises I taught you?”

“I’ve been trying but they aren’t helping,” she says.

“How often do you practice?”

Sara shrugs. “Whenever I feel like it’s really getting to me. Middle of school, usually. That’s when it’s really bad.”

“That would be part of the problem,” Mindforce says. “You’re trying to run before you can walk. Train
ing yourself to block out unwanted thoughts is going to be the hardest part for you. It was for me. It is for every new psionic. Once you get it, you’re good, but it’s the getting it part that’s the challenge.

“What I suggest you do is take advantage of your friends. Ask them to help you practice. Find a quiet spot somewhere, have them think at you,” he says, well aware of how silly that sounds, “and try the wall-building exercise. I think you’ll find it goes better when you’re only trying to block one thoughtstream and not dozens.”

“I guess.”

“The alternative is the drugs, and trust me, that’s not the path you want to take. How often have you been taking the meds?”

“At bedtime, that’s all, I swear,” Sara insists. “I...I always carry half a pill with me,” she confesses, her voice cracking, “just in case it gets too much for me, but I haven’t used it, I swear.”

“Hey, hey, Sara, it’s okay,” Mindforce says. “I believe you, and I understand. I know exactly what you’re going through, and I hope you know I don’t say that as an empty platitude.”

Sara nods.

“I know, too well, that it looks like an insurmountable challenge, but that’s why it’s important to practice under controlled conditions: so you can control your powers so you never have to take that pill again.”

“...Yeah.”

“All right. Now, tell me, how are you feeling physically? Any issues?”

“I feel like crap, all the time. I always feel exhausted. All the stress of trying to keep people out...”

“That’s part of it, yes,” Mindforce says, and he turns toward a waist-high stainless steel cart. “I’m going to draw a little blood to be absolutely sure, but smart money says you’re anemic.”

“Anemic? That’s when your blood doesn’t clot, right?”

“No, that’s hemophilia.”

“Oh.”

“Anemia is a decreased production of red blood cells that’s most commonly caused by a lack of iron in the bloodstream. That type of anemia is very common in women and in psionics, so you’ve got two strikes against you.”

“Huh.”

“The biochemistry behind it is fascinating...or excruciatingly dull, depending on your taste for science,” Mindforce says, “but in layman’s terms, when psionics use their abilities, they burn up iron and electrolytes very quickly. An electrolyte imbalance you’re more likely to correct without knowing it because you’ll get thirsty, then you’ll have some water or juice or a sports drink, and that mitigates the problem.

“Iron deficiencies are a little more stubborn,” he continues as he preps a needle for drawing blood, another part of the medical exam regimen Sara despises, “but if you start taking iron supplements and eat more iron-rich foods, that will help considerably.”

“It will?” Sara says with a drop of guarded optimism. She’s been without a sense of hope for so long it’s practically alien to her. “I won’t feel so wiped out all the time?”

“It’ll help a lot. After you use your powers you
might feel a bit of a crash, but in general you’ll have more energy, feel more alert...”

Sara allows herself a weak laugh. “Don’t suppose you have any hair advice?” she says, running a hand through the black wire sprouting from her scalp.

“Get a perm,” Mindforce says without skipping a beat.

“What, seriously?”

Mindforce nods. “The same biological processes that fire your powers and cause your health issues generate a very mild static electric field, which is why, for you, every day is a bad hair day. Even a gentle body perm will give your hair something to do besides fly out in all directions.”

“No kidding.” Sara squints at Mindforce’s form fitting cowl and says, “You don’t have a perm, do you?”

“Oh, God, no. Under this thing I’m as bald as a billiard ball. I’m a redhead, so it was either shave my head or brave Carrot Top cracks for the rest of my life,” Mindforce says with smirk. “No one deserves that.”

“No,” Sara laughs, “they don’t.”

THIRTEEN

When Matt said he’s kind of a super-hero geek? There’s no
kind of
about it.

While we wait for Sara to return, Matt peels off for me the history of the Protectorate (abridged). Like many super-teams, its formation was a happy accident. The Entity, a Boston-based “masked vigilante” (which is different than a super-hero how?), was tracking a domestic terrorist cell that was reportedly putting together an EMP bomb, a piece of high-end technology that can generate a massive electromagnetic pulse. Set off something like that in a major city, you take out the entire electric grid and fry every computer within range. You see that in a movie and you get a lot of dark buildings. In real life? For starters, imagine how many people would die when a half-dozen or so hospitals completely lose power. People on life support, premature newborns in intensive care, people on the operating table—all dead. At the same time you’d spark complete chaos on the streets as cars stall out, the public railway system locks up, street lights fade to black, every cell phone is rendered useless, and Internet access is cut off. Because people can be such panicky idiots, this
all leads to mass rioting and looting, but forget about getting any help from the police or fire departments, because even if you could contact them they’d be dead in the water too.

In other words: with one EMP bomb, Boston would go from zero to insanity in five seconds flat.

Anyway, the Entity, a guy who’s been successfully photographed less often than sasquatch, found the terrorists at the same time as Concorde, who had been tracking the stolen tech. A big fight ensued, and by big I mean, like, explosion-filled climax of a Michael Bay movie big.

As dumb luck would have it, two other superheroes heard the mayhem and joined the fray: Nina Nitro, who “blows things up real good” (her words, not mine) and Dr. Enigma, the Protectorate’s resident expert on all things mystical. Tides turned, some bad guys fled, a few were killed in the fight, and one was captured. He refused to talk, so that’s when Concorde called in his buddy Mindforce to do his thing. Recognizing that there was strength in numbers, the heroes teamed up, tracked down the remaining terrorists, and took them down so hard their children will be born cross-eyed.

“After that, they figured they had a good thing going so they formally established themselves as the Protectorate,” Matt says. “You’d be surprised how many super-teams got together by accident. Like, almost all of them. It’s the same story, over and over: a bunch of individual heroes happen to be in the right place at the right time so they can band together and take down a common enemy.”

Drop another brick on my head, why don’t you?
I get it. You think fate brought us together. Coincidence, sure, but I don’t believe fate had anything to do with us.

(Okay, a very bizarre and unlikely coincidence, but still...)

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Looks like Concorde got his suit patched up, but I can’t say the same for the guy wearing it; there’s a stiffness to his movements as he storms up to Matt and jabs a finger at him.

“Mask or no, I recognize you,” Concorde says. “There can’t be two teenagers in this town wearing the same ratty black trench coat.”

“It’s not ratty,” Matt says.

“Nah, dude, that thing’s chewed up,” Stuart says.

“Not helping.”

“And three guesses who the rest of you are,” Concorde says, taking us in. “Wait, where’s the other girl?”

I jump in before Matt can launch a snark attack. “She’s with Mindforce. She had an appointment to see him today. We came with her to keep her company and Mindforce offered to take us on a tour of Protectorate HQ.”

“He what?” Concorde curses Mindforce openly. Nice.

“Aawwwwkwaaaaarrrd,” Missy says.

I’ll say, and it’s no small relief when Sara returns with Mindforce. I get the distinct impression he’s the voice of reason for the Protectorate.