I look away from the scars of the second circle.
No longer feeling the urge to glance to my right at the sprawl of the third circle or the distant fourth beyond that I know far better. Instead, I lean my head into Legits back and start going over my mental map of the city. Trying my best to block out the noise of the road rushing past while I struggle to get some painkillers out from the pack in my Pocket. I manage to get two of the little pills free before pausing and then going back for another pair. My Meta metabolism should be able to handle a small overdose and I need to be able to use my arm more than I need to avoid throwing up later. I don’t bother to hold the tablets after I free them letting them drop deeper into my Pocket and then willing all four to return to my hand once I’m ready to swallow. They go down dry and scratchy, making me cough and reach for a bottle of water while swearing to store some of the little white tablets separately in future.
I’m finally able to finish placing our position along the highway as I gulp down the liquid and cough pick out some useful information from the mess of signage. Signs detailing junctions and exits fighting for space amongst advertising boards either affixed around them or held hovering on drones just past the road’s edge. It takes me a few more moments to think about what is around us and the next exit we’d be coming to. We will need to get off there so we can find a new spot to hide out and change into civilian clothing. So long as we put distance between our civilian and costumed selves, there’ll be no way to link us to anything thanks to my Power.
“Legit, take the next exit and then go straight until you get to Riverston park. We’ll head into the trees and change there! The Metro can get us home!”
His helmet shifts as he nods, pulling the bike over into the right lane so he can roar past a bus and truck combo that are acting as an unwilling buffer to a corporate convoy. The truckers had been willing to let us pass right next to them but the quiet menace emanating from the group of four black armoured cars makes clear they won’t be so accommodating. I shiver as the bus blocks my view of a pair of turret gunners who openly track us from the car’s roofs. Looking back up to spot a dozen people on the bus, all tracking our progress with phone cameras and pointing fingers. One arm still mostly numb and whole body shivering at the combination of wind chill and Pocket cold, I don’t quite feel the same urge to smile for the camera this time around. A girl young enough to be in one of my classes flicks her attention to something behind us, eyes going wide as saucers as she rushes to hold her phone steady and shout something which has most of the other passengers doing the same.
Reluctantly, really not wanting to do this again, I turn around with a lump of ice in my stomach at what I’m expecting to find. I spot him at once. Not the flying Supe or MEA interceptor that I was expecting but possibly something worse. Pinball, swan diving down onto the inner hard shoulder of the road before rising up to skim above the tarmac like some hi-tech skipping stone that only grows faster with each bounce. His lithe, swimmers body and impeccable diving form barely recognisable through the mad shifting of the lines turning him into a glowing distortion in the air. One that is rapidly catching up to us.
“Pinballs back and closin’!”
I don’t even notice my returned accent as Legit takes one glance in the wingmirror and leans lower on the bike, gunning the engine to punch us away from the bus and the corporate security behind. I see him glance to the right, at the central barrier and the cars rushing in the opposite direction. Then glance to the left where the Corpo convoy has formed a line that is now slaloming around the vehicles ahead of them who are all either trying to pull over into the far-left lane or slowing rapidly as the drivers spot an approaching Supe fight. Clearly whoever the convoy is for has no interest in being delayed.
A thrill of panic goes through me as I realise what Legit’s about to do. Left or right, the cars on either side will offer a new series of obstacles and shields that he can use to slow Pinball down. All while putting random people in harm’s way, either through our fight or by drawing the fire of corporate security. Guards and heroes know what they’ve signed up for but my uncle could be one of those drivers.
“Stay straight and gun it! I’ve got a plan!”
The bike wobbles, Legit half turning his head before he remembers he can meet my eyes through the wing mirrors and pinning me in place with his frown. My heart races, hands trembling and scalp stinging from the pain of the wind trying to pull out my hair by the roots but I meet his gaze through the three layers of reflective material and know that he sees me. The bike steadies and I see his jaw set as he points his eyes at the road ahead and takes one hand off the bars to squeeze my wrist.
I cling back onto his chest through the pain of moving my left arm, dropping the half full bottle and holding in a tirade of swears as I struggle with my flapping jacket. The wind does its best to rip it away from me now that the rapidly clearing space to our left no longer has as many cars to shield us. I get it after what feels like an age but can’t have been more than a few seconds, forcing my tingling fingers into my Pocket to grab hold of as many paintballs as I can.
‘Why didn’t I plan for this?! He’s an up-and-comer known to operate in this area, of course he’d be eager to chase us!’
Pushing away the revolver that tries to slide into my grip, I pull my hand out of my Pocket with a low hiss of pain. Memories of a school trip to see the visitor friendly area of Fairhurst helps me power through the twitching spasms and I lock my fingers into a claw as I turn around to take aim at the rapidly approaching blur of red and yellow.
I watch and judge his speed, pushing away my rising panic at how he’s already closed over half the distance I first saw between us. Only continuing to gain on us as he skims and dives along the road. The whipping of the wind and constant roar of road noise all around me feels almost meditative and I quickly find myself drawn into the beautiful simplicity of his movements. A combination of diving form and unique, likely self-developed, gymnastic forms letting him cut through the air like a fish in water before he pulls himself back into a ball just in time to skip off the floor and rise back faster than he fell. Never too much height that he wastes momentum moving vertically without need. Never too low that he doesn’t have time to re-adjust and make sure that he is always angling himself in a straight line towards us.
I watch him through a handful of cycles, heart rate slowing and eyes tracking the arc he will next take as my mind starts to predict just where his increasing speed will take him. Unlike before, where he’d been using houses, cars and street lights for an always shifting trajectory and point of approach, now he lands in exactly the same position each time and always on the small stretch of road set aside for broken down cars or, in the last few decades, Supes who don’t care for traffic.
It makes him fast and is letting him gain even more speed at a ridiculous pace but, it also makes him predictable.
I release the paintballs in a stream, letting the rushing wind tear them from my hand and launch them behind us at the perfect height to impact directly into Pinball’s helmet. A grin sliding onto my face as I see him rising from the last dive only to notice the dozen or so balls of pink and red now far too close to avoid. My chest swells with the expected triumph of success just in time for the breath to wheeze out as each of the little balls bounces off his head. Flying away like they’d just been thrown against the worlds safest trampoline.
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Little splatters of colour burst on the road or against the black sides of the corporate convoy keeping pace with him as he drops back down to bounce against the road. Just a few dozen metres away now. Close enough that, as he reaches the apex of his skimming bounce, I can just make out the little grin on his face through the still lightly paint smeared visor. My wheeze becomes rapid breaths as I swallow thickly, suddenly very aware that it can’t be more than a handful more bounces before he reaches us. It worked last time so why not now?
‘Last time, the paint would have hit him right after he clipped my wrist...’
My eyes narrow under the visor as I focus on where he lands. He’s definitely slowed down. Not by much, barely anything really and not enough that the next bounce won’t carry him close enough that he can tackle us. Or, more likely, transfer enough force into the bike that it gets turned into scrap and smashes us against the central divider.
The bounce after I’d hit him with the paintballs had definitely taken him less distance than it should have though. At least, when based on the speed that he’d gained all the times before. My mind makes the connection at once, my hand shoved back into my Pocket to close on the object best suited to testing the theory before I can really think it through. Almost pulling it out before I remember just where I am and what I’m about to do.
It’s the sight of Pinball’s wide and confident smile that dispels my worries. The expression half hidden under the frosted plastic of his visor and only visible through the total mess of lines warping his form thanks to the lack of LEDs on the clear plastic. The hero rises from his last bounce before reaching us, angling himself to get alongside the bike and raising his hands beside his face. My eyes seeing red and heart pounding as he wiggles his fingers in mock surrender before starting to reach out for the bikes tail. My own fingers settle into the three holes of the object I’d reached for, flap of my already broken jacket straining to the very limit as the bowling ball passes the point of no return and is ejected out of my Pocket.
I angle the flap so the ball exits directly into Pinball’s path, seven kilograms of shiny green weight appearing not half a dozen feet in front of him and immediately starting to fall as we race away from it. Things happen quickly then. The smile freezes under his visor, the glowing distortion of his body waving like an elastic band as he tries to angle himself to sail over. Then, on realising that he won’t make it, the hero raises his hand and slams it down directly on top of the ball.
Just like before, Pinball comes to an immediate and total stop. The distorted light of his form writhing as lines flow from him into the suddenly disappeared ball. A crack that I can feel in my bone’s travels through the air as the highway buckles underneath us and a new speed bump is cut across the road. My heart pounding louder as I stare dumbfounded at the hole where the ball has disappeared. A line of broken and jutting tarmac extending from it in a ridge that now divides the road behind us. Those few cars not already stopped swerve or slam on the brakes to avoid it. The corporate convoy amongst them after the lead most car crashes over the new bump with the distinctive sound of a broken suspension.
‘If he hadn’t seen the ball…’
The image of the bowling ball flying randomly off into those drivers now getting out to shout at the hero like the paintballs before it flicks across my eyes. The image followed by that of Pinball getting the fraction of a second-hand movement wrong and launching the makeshift cannonball in the wrong direction. Or worse, directly back at us. I hadn’t even truly seen the bowling ball after he had touched it. It had moved so fast.
“Woo! Fuck yeah, Pocket!”
Legit doesn’t share my horror or wait for me to reply, pulling the bike up in a diagonal wheelie that drops the front wheel down on the concrete of the central barrier before then using it as leverage to throw his weight forward and bring up the bike’s back wheel as well. We ride the thin wall for only a moment before crashing down onto the hard shoulder on the other side, traffic now racing towards and past us across the dozen lanes to our right. I open my mouth to shout at him for the pointless move before I spot what was waiting for us on the highways other side. A squadron of police cars blocking the road ahead, with a MEA truck flashing yellow and green with its roof turret still tracking us as we pass by too quickly for them to fire safely with more cars behind us.
“Where’d you even get a bowling ball?!”
I flinch at Legits question, forgetting that he would have been able to see Pinball’s glow in the bike’s wing mirror and so watch the hero closing in behind us. A swell of deep gratitude rises up in me at how he’d kept us steady and trusted me to deal with it while driving straight at the blockade that I hadn’t even noticed. Randomly swerving across traffic would have been safe enough for us, given his Power-granted skill. Likely even letting us escape the hero as we could use other cars as a shield but I don’t know if I could have stomached putting so many normal people in danger. The mix of pride and horror at my actions has me choke on my first reply, my mouth too dry for words. Giving up as a coughing fit works its way out of me, I just pat Legit on the chest with my hand while turning around to keep tabs on the hero still behind us.
Pinball reappears from behind the barrier as I work to get the coughing under control, wetting my dry lips and regretting dropping my only water bottle. The hero moves with sharp urgency as he climbs up onto the low concrete wall without any of the stretching or poses from before. His helmet not shifting from where it’s pointed toward us. I shift my focus away to take in the cars not far behind him that are still speeding towards the new speedbump. Some people in this city really don’t give a shit about Supe fights if it means being late. A prime example being the now three car corporate convoy who’ve navigated the bump and are racing towards the useless blockade. Some of the police cars already being moved to let them through.
I take my eyes off the shiny black vehicles to look back to Pinball and the three cars still racing towards him. As I watch, two of them finally pull over to try and get into the queue forming for the left most lane where the crack hasn’t created too much of a bump while the third, an oversized truck, just keeps driving straight at it. The police and MEA vehicles pay no attention to the hero or the building traffic, the uniformed men and women working to rapidly pick up their speed traps and barriers so they can turn around and follow us.
A slight smudge of light snaps my attention back to Pinball. The hero keeping his helmet pointed towards us, towards me, as he starts hopping up and down. Each bounce sending him higher. Each drop shooting him back up faster than before. The commitment is impressive but still, starting with just his own little hop, it’ll take him a long time before he can build up the speed to catch us again. More than enough for us to get to the next exit and out of sight.
“He still there?! I can’t see him in the mirrors?!”
“Yeah, but he’s lost too much momentum to catch up again! He’s just starting to build up speed but we’ve got-! Shit!”
Just as I’m about to start feeling good about our chances, I see Pinball raise his hand in the universally recognised hitchhikers pose. A pose that means something very different coming from the internet famous hero. In his videos, it had always looked like random members of the public had been the ones responding to his call and so I’d discounted it as an option given the lack of all but one of them. Now though, I find myself doubting that the action of his ‘volunteer flippers’ were quite as spontaneous as he’d made them appear. My heart lurches up into my throat as the driver of the truck just behind him sticks his own hand out the window in a returned signal. Wheels turning sharply as he swerves onto the hard shoulder and directly into the path of Pinball as he jumps in front of the grill. The hero’s touch brings the car to a perfect stop while he is launched forward at what must be close to a hundred miles per hour.
The swear isn’t a very useful warning but it does manage to get Legit to glance in his mirror where the suddenly glowing ball of painful light has him immediately swerve us to the right and across all twelve lanes of oncoming traffic. No sooner have we cut across the first loudly honking driver than a yellow and red blur shoots through the space we’d just been. Flying a few dozen metres further up the road before I see a barely visible hand shoot out to touch the tarmac and send the hero launching back towards us without any loss of speed.
Tires squeal and brakes scream around us as Legit throws the bike sideways again. Drivers who’d felt safe to keep moving when the fight seemed over now trying to dodge around both us and the painful to look at hero. The bikes wheels rise wholly off the ground this time as Legit angles the handlebar to slam into the road in place of our heads. Sparks fly off the metal as it is shaved away like foam held against a sanding wheel. I wrap both of my arms around the steel of Legits chest, trusting him to hold us the bare inch or so above the tarmac and a similar fate. Some unconscious sense tilts my head back almost far enough to graze the road anyway, my face warming as I catch a cloud of sparks on my visor while a blur of light flits above me.
The movement is too fast for my conscious mind to parse until after it has passed and I’m left with the memory of Pinball’s finger traveling but a hairsbreadth above my skin. I swallow thickly through the bizarre sense of reversed déjà vu. A flash of the guard’s terrified face as my own finger had pressed into his forehead bringing old thoughts of karma back into my head. Thoughts flung away as Legit twists the handlebars to right the bike just in time to rip up the front wheel and mount the guard rail before throwing us over the highways side.
“Jump!”
I don’t get much choice as he throws himself backwards off the bike. Arms still wrapped around his chest and gripping his jersey as legs far stronger than mine kick the now heavily scratched vehicle away just before a blur of light impacts its side. Eyes catching only a fleeting impression of Pinball as he appears from the glowing spot with one finger touching the bikes side and I just have time to realise that my right foot is still caught on the bikes exhaust before my world becomes screaming wind and tumbling light.
The bike releases a deafening sound of twisting metal and shattered plastic as I feel it launched away from me. My foot coming unhooked almost immediately but still far too late to matter as I keep spinning uncontrollably through the air. Some distant part of my mind not currently screaming notes that the only thing in my hands are the scraps of Legit’s jersey before the constant spinning becomes too much and I feel my world go dark.
