Chương 13: Dazed and Confused

Despite the broken shoulder, roiling bile, and possible concussion, I may as well have been walking on cloud nine all the way home. I had already turned the corner and was walking down the street by the time the sound of rushing boots and walkie talkie codes came from behind me. The mask came off, the hoodie slipped down, and regular ol' Cass the non-super teenager was innocently making her way back to her abode. A flash of green displayed in my vision and I read my latest report card.

Fight summary Zero (Vigilante) vs Unnamed (Chem Head Minion) Civilian saved from horrific act 300 HP Level 0 Henchman apprehended 100 HP Final Total 400 Hero Points Forced power activation detected Atrophied status reduced from 24% to 0% System fully unlocked. Welcome back! Status Secret Identity: Cassandra Keene Super Alias: Zero Class: Chronomancer Hero Rank: F Stats (Rank F) Strength: 0 Agility: 0 Constitution: 0.

5 Charisma: 0 Intelligence: 3 Focus: 2 Skills: Chrono Shift (Rank F): User can displace themselves and any touched objects outside the normal flow of time. Duration and uses are extremely limited due to current skill level and low intelligence. Hero Points Available: 400 Spend Hero Points Achievements — Well, finally got that rightfully earned three in intelligence. Maybe that could be bumped up by submitting a well-written essay during the next fight.

As for focus, I had felt completely out of it all while up against that behemoth, but no doubt I had been concentrating when his foot of death was coming for me. Leaving my attention on focus caused another window to pop up, overlayed over the first. Focus: A measure of a super's perception and ability to resist esoteric and mind affecting powers and abilities. Jackpot! The system came with an instruction manual, not that my befuddled mind could grasp much of what it said.

I swiped the window away and focused on intelligence. Intelligence: A measure of a super's ability to exert their skills. It improves the duration, frequency and intensity of skill usage. Ok, so a three in intelligence didn't mean I was dumb, it just meant I was weak. I'd take it. I spent some time going through the others. They were pretty straight forward. Strength made you stronger. Big surprise there. Agility improved both speed, dexterity, and reflex.

Constitution made it easier to take a hit and improved healing. Charisma was kind of scary. Charisma: A measure of a super's ability to emotionally influence or manipulate others. It is resisted by focus. Well that explained why so many supers were freakishly photogenic. I'm looking at you, Solaria. It called me a Chronomancer with the power to step outside the flow of time. Kind of figured that part out on my own, but it was nice to have it all official like that.

The Hero Points just gave a spend option that didn't seem like a good idea to use after a head injury. I really needed to get home. My feet walked faster even as the jangling motion made my head want to split open. The night air was cold and crisp and it felt like I was breathing it for the first time. Everything had been so different. I had slowed down time twice, once stopping it completely. I had fought against Goliath, and I had won. I'd saved someone. Obviously, tonight had not been complete perfection.

I had made some mistakes, scared and hurt a stranger even younger than I was. That clearly needed to be the last time that happened. I know, I know, you have to crack some eggs to make an omelet, there's a bit of yin in yang and vice versa, but I was not going to be one of those super heroes who dismissed everything bad they did as just "collateral damage". Maybe this was how it would be from now on. Maybe I could get stronger every time until it was second nature. But things had to stay in check.

I couldn't go around using it whenever I deemed necessary. That was how Hitlers were made. I should make a set of rules. Maybe read up on ideas. The Art of War. Confucius' The Great Learning. The Spiderman comics.

'With great power comes great responsibility' sounded like the most profound nugget of wisdom ever right now. Crap, this was how people talked when they were high. Better question: why do people who take drugs want to feel concussed? The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. When I got to the stairs of Gran's apartment, I stepped up them with the speed of a drunken turtle.

It was egregiously late but none of the neighbors would bat an eye if they saw me like this. They would just think that I had finally entered my teenage hoodlum years. I spent a few seconds sitting on the top of the stairs when I finally reached it. Maybe it was a few minutes or even a half an hour, I couldn't tell. My brain was a fidget spinner in my head and I was just waiting for it to stop. A door creaked open.

"There you are!" I didn't need to turn my head. I could tell from the grouchiness of the voice.

"Hey Gran." She stomped up to me wearing her faded red flannel pajamas.

"What are you doing out here and why on earth are you two hours late?" I looked up at her. Three Grans stared back at me, wrinkled lips set in a straight line, beady eyes trying to kill me with their death stare.

"Oh no, I can't handle triplets," I whispered, covering my eyes with my hands. My body was thrown back as a bony hand clenched on my hoodie and dragged me toward the door. It wasn't too bad, kind of like a hammock. At least it prevented my head from hitting the floorboards.

"You are on drugs! Ain't said a word of sense in the last few weeks." My back thumped painfully over the threshold and Gran slammed the door when I was fully encased in my jailcell.

"Alright, you better tell me everything that's going on right now, Missy, or you ain't allowed out that door again!" I took my hands off of my eyes.

"Really? No more school?" Her teeth grit together so hard they might break.

"I'll handcuff you to me and you can go to school with your own personal conjoined twin. You want that?" My eyebrows shot up and I gasped.

"Grandma, you should do it! You could take down all of them. You could be the queen Mean Girl! The meanest of them all."

"Oh, you're on some of the bad stuff, ain't ya?" she sneered, walking away. Her feet clomped their way through the kitchen, some metal pots clanged together, and then there was the sound of rushing water. I was looking at the stains on the popcorn surface of our ceiling, searching for shapes like children do with clouds. Ice water poured onto my face, and from the feel of it, it was a whole bucket full. My head jerked up, spluttering water from my mouth, my airpipes choking.

"What… was that…for?" Gran sat on her spindly legs.

"So you could finally speak English. Now you're going to tell me exactly what's been going on with you." I took a moment to cough my lungs out. Sure would be nice to freeze time in place now, maybe just live the rest of my life without ever continuing this conversation. I could happily live with the world as my own empty, non-moving amusement park.

Finally the coughing changed from real to melodramatic, and Gran's eyes were telling me we could do this all night, so I started talking with my hoarse, choked out voice.

"I've been working." Wait, no, I couldn't say that, then I'd need to bring home money.

"-Working with a friend who needs help with his English essays." There. Much better. Her eyes narrowed at me.

"Are you pregnant?" My eyes rolled to the back of my head.

"No! I am telling the truth!" Not the whole truth and a little something but the truth, so help me God. She laughed, the scary kind. The way a sergeant laughs before he tells his platoon to do a thousand push ups.

"Well, I've never heard of a tutoring session lasting six hours and well into the night, so somethin' tells me you're lying."

"I told you I had my own paper to work on too."

"Oh yeah? Where is it?" She got me there. I furrowed my brow.

"I just realized I left it at his house."

"Oh, you're going over to boy's houses now?"

"Just for tutoring, that's all." It didn't help that I was having a hard time looking directly at her face.

"You think I was born yesterday? I invented the excuse of 'just for tutoring' when I was a teenager. And I'm not gonna tell ya what I was really doing, 'cause it ain't fit for your young ears!" I cringed, body shrinking like a turtle hiding in its shell.

"G ross! Gran, I could go my whole life without hearing that you ever kissed someone." Tonight had been traumatic but Gran was going to be the one to give me PTSD. She sat down on the floor and sighed.

"I know I told you to do something different with your life, but this ain't it, Cass. I wanted you to find purpose, some kind of direction, and smokin' pot or drinking or whatever it is you're doing is the opposite of that! Haven't you ever watched Dazed and Confused? You know who those boys grow up to be? Matthew McConaughey, that's who, but they never get out of the naked bongo years, no matter how much their girlfriend tells them to do so.

And then one night the police get involved, and the girlfriend gets handcuffed too because she was there and-""Gran," I say slowly, brain working hard to put the puzzle pieces together.

"Did you date Matthew McConaughey when you were younger?" She pointed a finger at me.

"That's not the point! The point is- do you want that to be your life?" I lifted my head up and stared at her.

"Check my eyes. Do you see any red?" Gran leaned in close, pulling down one of my eyelids to get a full look, lips twisting.

"Alright, you pass that one. Now breath." I opened my mouth and breathed out. Her nose wrinkled.

"Well, I'd advise you to brush your teeth twice tonight, but at least you don't smell like an alkie." Mentally, I relaxed. At least she wasn't going to sign me up for AA meetings. She held a bony hand under my chin, lifting it up.

"But you are gonna explain how you got these cuts and bruises on your face." I swallowed. That was going to be a hard one.

"This boy hittin' you?" Her voice came out low and gravelly. It sounded like she was about to go get a shotgun. Between Gran and Mr. Boulder back there, she was definitely the more ominous. I took a deep breath and sat up straighter. It somewhat cleared my mind. The ice bath helped too, if I was honest. Our living room wasn't whirling around in my vision, the furniture not even shaking.

My stomach could probably use some of that water she dumped on me to settle it, and my head would still feel better detached, but hopefully a good night's sleep would fix that. All I had to do was convince Gran that I wasn't ruining my life and then I could recover in the sanctity of my bedroom. I'd watched enough spy shows to know that in situations like these, it was best to tell as much truth as you could.

"No, I'm serious when I say that I am just tutoring a guy from school. He's not my boyfriend, he's barely an acquaintance. He just knows that I am an encyclopedia of literature and needs my help because he is a robot who only understands science. Now the reason that I got these cuts and bruises is because while I was making my way home, I heard a girl crying down an alley. She did have an abusive boyfriend and I tried to intervene.

He shoved me around, I pushed back, it got more people's attention, and they called the police. My head hit against a wall at some point, so I think that's what's making me loopy, but seriously, it can't be that different from my normal weirdness." Gran stared at me, mouth set, eyes trying to pierce into my soul. I concentrated on the verifiable parts of what I'd said.

"You went out of your way to help somebody?" I nodded, then lifted a hand to my head because that was a bad choice.

"Yep."

"At night? Down some dark alley?"

"Mhmm."

"You fought some guy? How big was he?" I shrugged.

"Not that big. Looked like he ate a steady diet of soybeans." She gave me a long look, then stood up straight.

"Alright. You might be gettin' stupider, but you're also gettin' braver, and I'm proud of you for that." Her hand held out to lift me up. I took her hand and raised myself, tilting slightly as I got my bearings.

"You can't have one without the other, Gran."

"Pshh, guess I'm the exception to the rule as always. Now how about I cook you something to celebrate?" I began making my way down the hall.

"As long as I can eat it in bed, I'll take it." She smiled at me and I could see it in her eyes. That true pride there. The trust in me because up until this point, I had always been worthy of trust. Grumpy, yes, annoying and a smart aleck, of course, but I always did the things I was supposed to do. I never lied to her because I never did anything worth lying for. Someday, I would tell her.

When I had a better hold on it, when it wasn't all chaotic, I would tell her the whole truth and she would understand and be proud. And in the wise words of George Costanza: it's not a lie if you believe it.