Superlucky Part One

   "September the 28th. Normie Terrorism Blows Up Cornerstore.
    2 dead, 6 injured. At 2:00PM an explosive device was detonated at the Short Stop convenience store on the corner of Pine and Cedar Ave. A young adult male normie has been taken into custody on suspicion of ties with the terrorist organization NASM. A possible female super accomplice has eluded capture. If confirmed, this will be the fourth case of organized normie terrorism in the last nine months.
  "Well, that's all there is for now, but that only cuts it for a news bulletin." The wrinkled detective slapped the sheet of paper down. "The media's going to be wanting more info like a fat man wants that last cupcake, and they're going to be biting at our hands to get to it. So save me the knuckle bites, will ya? Just tell us everything you know willingly, Mr. Chodzko," he implored while wiping away the perspiration on his forehead.
    "Just 'Rick' will do." Rick didn't like being addressed so formally, especially when he felt it was all a charade.
    "Mr. Chodzko," the detective remained formal, his deep wrinkles creasing further as he spoke, "what do you know?"
    Rick wrinkled his brow in mock thought. "Hmm, well, it sounds like the bomb was set off by a normie terrorist, but the bulletin doesn't say who. Do you have any leads?"
      The detective rolled his eyes and motioned to his bouncer-like colleague, a Muscle-Man. He opened the folder on the table and left in it some notes he had taken.
    "Mr. Chodzko, you chose wrong," he lamented. He then handed the Muscle-Man the folder. “A Reader will be here soon.”
    The Muscle-Man whistled. “Wasting no time, eh?”
    Two people were dead, and despite what the bulletin said, no one was certain it was a bomb that did it-- that is, no one except for Rick. He would have given anything to wipe that knowledge from his memory. As long as he had it, the police were going to find it. A normie like him didn’t have a chance.
    In a world starkly divided between the 70% who were “talented” (supers) and the 30% who were “talentless” (normies), Rick had spent his whole life having to outwit those who preyed on the common prejudice that all normies were bitter at the lot they were born with. Normies were thought to be so bitter and envious, in fact, that they were credited with being the primary source of crime, and that was even when discounting the actions of terrorists like NASM (Normies Against SuperMan). This alleged knack for wrongdoing was attributed to their conniving nature.
    Rick preferred to consider himself cunning. He had managed to survive in relative freedom for so long because he had noted the weaknesses that were inevitable with certain talents. That, or he was super lucky.
    Luck might not be enough this time. Even if he had had an immaculate history, being a normie at the scene of a crime, a scene of a suspected terrorist attack, meant he would be at the mercy of whatever amazing, terrifying, and incredible talents the police subjected him to.

Mind reading is not universal.

    “Question number one,” muttered the interrogator as he typed onto a digital pad. His buzzed hair was slightly cowlicked in front, leaving the simple tattoo of an eye on his forehead unobstructed. The tattoo was not cosmetic, but rather the federally mandated insignia that he possessed the ability to read minds. While his talent was in use, the tattoo would react with the chemical processes occurring within his skull and change from black to red. The red eye was staring Rick down. “Are you a member of NASM?”
    Yes or no questions, Rick knew, were the easiest to read, and would be asked first: no matter how the simple answer was conjured, a multitude of thoughts would be attached, giving the Reader strings to tug at. As it was, Rick was not a member of NASM, but to answer "no" would still involve thinking of things that he’d rather keep secret.
    “Ne, ještě jsem nespal s vaší matkou,” Rick answered while he imagined the Reader’s mother as best he could.
    “It’s a yes or no question, Mr. Chodzko.” The Reader tried to sound casual.
    Rick smiled jovially, concentrating on the officer’s metrosexual features. “Je mi to líto. Nejsem na takové věci.”
    The Reader stuck his tongue in his cheek in impatience. “After this it becomes much less pleasant, Mr. Chodzko. What language is that, by the way?”
    “One you clearly don’t know.”
    The Reader glared with all three eyes. “Wait it out. Just try to wait it out. You will only be sent to scarier men.”
    Rick leaned as far forward as he could from his handcuffed position in the chair. “Why don’t you ask me how many languages I know?”
    “Fine. How many languages do you know?” the Reader asked while rubbing his neck.
    Rick grinned, but remained silent. It wasn’t that hard to lie to a Reader. One just had to truly believe what he thought, and Rick truly believed that knowing a few words qualified as knowing the language.
    “Ten? Are you serious? This could take forever.” The Reader shook his head and swore out loud. “Fine, you win. Move on to a bigger, badder boss. I won’t lose sleep over sending a terrorist to the Persuader.”
    Rick swallowed. Hard. A Persuader? So soon? They really did think he was a terrorist, not that he’d given them cause to think otherwise. The same Muscle-Man, whose biceps expanded and filled his sleeves like balloons, lifted Rick by his wrists and took him out the door. His insignia of superhuman strength were the inked links around his wrists, which strangely mirrored Rick’s very real metal handcuffs. Soon Rick was being steered through an empty narrow hallway, which later opened to a slightly less narrow, but heavily occupied one.
    The crowd had begun to vacate the corridor at the first sight of the Muscle-Man. He grunted, "Make way!" to a few stragglers before reaching his superior officer and asking where to store Rick until the Persuader was ready to see him. The Muscle-Man then roughly carted Rick by his handcuffs toward the prison area. Rick stumbled, his mind still preoccupied with his impending meeting with the Persuader.

It is the asset of the Muscle-man to become even stronger when in distress. It is also his weakness.

    “Max? Max! Where are you?!” a woman shouted. Either cubicles or people in the crowded station hid her from Rick’s vision.
    The Muscle-Man perked his head up, trying to find her. “Sandra?” he asked quizzically.
    A short woman burst forth from around a cubicle and marched up to the Muscle-Man.     “Max! You are a dead man! You hear me? A dead man.” Sandra flailed her fists, her face dangerously red.
    “Honey, please, not at work. Just wait a minute. This normie needs to be detained,” Max begged. All eyes were on him. He began to sweat and shake in his nervousness.
    “I’m still your honey, am I? Is that why...just explain this to me!” the woman held up a red piece of lingerie.
    Max seemed anxious to explain, but in his agitation he snapped Rick’s handcuffs. At the sound of the breaking metal Max looked down at Rick, and Rick looked back up at him. Max then lunged to tackle his prisoner, but Rick managed to maneuver out of his grasp and sprint away. Max threw himself in Rick’s direction in desperation, but only managed to destroy a cubicle.

Those with talents are always so eager to use them.

     Rick pulled the fire alarm just before hurdling a desk. He ran toward the only exit he knew: the front entrance. For now he still had the element of surprise, but God help him when the idle police stopped turning their heads dumbly and started trying to catch him.
    “Freeze!” An officer with a simple snowflake etched on his throat straddled the hallway, his hand held out in the universal sign to stop. The buttons on his uniform strained as he took a deep inhale.
    Rick dove toward the space between the officer’s legs just as he started to exhale a blizzard that filled the hall before him from top to bottom. Everything in Rick’s wake was covered in frost, including what appeared to be a crystalline sergeant. The sergeant then utilized his own talent to remedy his frozen state. He burst into flames and sighed in relief. That was, until the fire sprinklers turned on. Rick left the chaos of flames, water, and ice behind him.
    Not only was the station now quite distracted, but a slick, icy hallway separated Rick from those who knew of his escape. True, it would only take a moment for the message to get to the front door, but Rick was running for his life. He just might make it to the street.
    Just as he was about to reach the door, he crashed into a man coming in. Rick fell on his butt and wrist. Wincing, he involuntarily looked at the man, before him. He had also fallen to the ground, bewildered. He wore a skintight, lime-green jumpsuit half hidden underneath a sports zip-up and sweatpants. Rick’s breath caught in his throat. Even if he hadn’t seen the telltale sign of the officer’s neon uniform, the tattooed wings on the sides of his neck betrayed that this man was a Speedster. Rick bolted through the open glass doors. It was only a matter of time before he was pursued by someone faster than a cheetah.
    Rick fled to the dirty back alleys, the stars mostly blocked by skyscrapers and light pollution. He ran to keep himself free, but not alive. In fact, he’d rather that the police accidentally kill him than send him to the Persuader. His throat was raw from his harsh panting, a stitch had sewn itself into his side with a blunt needle, and his shoulders had seized up in response to being swung around like pendulums. Rick collapsed behind a dumpster, dry heaving.
    If they caught him, they’d find out everything, and they’d catch Cara for sure.

#

    “There, you’re done.” Rick had never thought that applying the costume makeup would be so easy. He set down the foam brush and turned his girlfriend, Cara, around by the shoulders so she could face the mirror.
    Rick admired the reflection of his handiwork. Cara's sheets of brunette hair framed her oval white face. Two painted black discs marked the cheekbones and a wave of black lipstick traced her lips. Black dashes extended from her eyes like the points on a compass.
    Rick picked up the lipstick again. “Sorry, forgot something...” He drew in thin eyebrows slightly above her real ones, which lay beneath a layer of white.
    “This is ridiculous, Rick! Everyone’s going to be staring at me!”
    Rick frowned at Cara’s dismay. “People will just think you’re a mime on a lunch break, or maybe a post modern artist. What’s wrong with that?”
    “But I’m not a mime on a lunch break, nor any artist” Cara protested. Her hair whipped around as she turned from the mirror. “I’m wanted.”
    “I know,” Rick sighed. “But, look. You can’t see the tattoo through the makeup at all.”
    Cara faced her reflection once more, tracing the lines of her hidden tattoo with her eyes. Her voice softened. “You’re right, I can’t see it. But I know it’s still there.”
    Rick knew Cara’s tattoo perhaps better than she did. Thick, dark blue lines wove around her face in the manner of a kabuki mask from Japanese theatre. It was symmetrical, expressive, and difficult to hide.
     What the tattoo represented was the reason why Cara couldn’t go out in public save for underground normie establishments. Cara’s talent was neutralizing all other talents within a given radius. She didn’t know how far her radius currently extended, as she had avoided using it in well over a year. There was a time when she would have been classified as a “Dampener”; however, due to the invasive and demeaning nature of this talent, the class became colloquially known as “Klepto.” Not that Cara’s class was common. She had never met another, only heard of them as everyone had heard of them, even when she was under the government’s care.
    The government made sure to keep the more dangerous talents in check and under their employ. The supers who fell under this distinction, such as Kleptos and Persuaders, were all raised and trained in government facilities. Cara had “gone missing” before she could be trained to her full potential, but well after she had become proficient.
    “Come on,” Rick prodded her. “How about we go to a convenience store and get some Icees? September the 28th comes but once a year, and they’re half-priced!”
    Cara clenched her jaw in thought, her eyes locked with Rick’s. Finally, she asked, “Don’t I get a beret?”
    Rick smiled and stuffed it playfully on her head.

Part Two