I have gotten good at floating, and I'm doing exactly that, well above the bank building. I tilt myself on a course out toward the Inland Empire, grab some passing molecules, and push myself up to a couple hundred knots, staying 150 feet above the ground. Straight line. Good at that. If I can find a terrorist group who will agree to run in a straight line, and not go indoors, I am ready to stop them today.
The Twin Towers I call them, actually two big rocks out in Hesperia, but I thought it would be a good reminder of what I should be able to do. More molecules sacrifice their energy to my feet and I push near to the speed of sound. My course starts here, follows the railroad tracks through the mountains back into Ontario, then north, up and around the hills and canyons to intercept the Grapevine, and then across the valley, out over the ocean, and back to wherever I hid my car for the evening. I have yet to do it without hitting a canyon wall, or a hilltop, or both. Tonight is no exception. I have a similar loop around the islands when I'm in Hawai'i, but I haven't bumped in to one of them yet. If Molokai sinks, you'll know who it was.
I bounce not so gleefully off the wall of the train tunnel, straighten out for a while, and punch it up and over the hill, swooping down into the valley by Magic Mountain. The other thing about this route is the irony of flying past the Superman ride, reminding me nightly just how lame I am.
Tonight I turn north only briefly, and pop back through the mountains to the desert. I have set up a weight lifting course too, really big and lopsided rocks that I carry around, throw, and otherwise destroy. I have to admit that I am not too bad at the 10,000 pound rock toss. OK, I don't know what the rock really weighs, but I'm sticking with the 10,000 pound story until a better one comes along. I get the same stupid "I'm watching you" feeling from Fog Dude out here, but at least I can aim the rocks.
I have given up moving cars, because I have yet to do it without denting something.
So 90 days in, the Superman-Spiderman-Captain Marvel composite can almost fly without causing damage, lift big rocks, but nothing of value, in his bare hands, and beat a Buick in a race, provided there are no turns. Alright, I could beat the Buick if there are turns, but we'd probably only be able to race one lap on the track because the road would be a disaster after I went by.
Done with rock tossing, my toes do the molecule dance and I am jetting back across the night sky into LA. I do have to admit that it is beautiful up here, the view is amazing, and nothing you can do with your clothes on feels as free or as fun. The wind is cool on your face, it's night so you can't see the smog. Clouds are a pain, but once you've gotten soaking wet a couple times, you learn to avoid them. Which would be a lot easier if I could steer better, which is why I keep a set of spare clothes in my car.
Did I mention this is also screwing up my relationship with Jen? Did I mention my girlfriend found a set of men's clothes in my car which were too big for me, the morning after a night I begged off being together because I was "tired" from a flight to Denver? Lots of thunderstorms, I told her. Everything late, mentally draining, could we do it tomorrow instead? Then her car won't start in the morning, Starbuck and I race over to get her to work, forgetting that my extra extra large flying clothes are in the back seat. Fuck me. Which means I hardly get to fuck her. And she thinks maybe I'm gay and she's my beard.
I'd explain, then she'd want to fly like Lois Lane in Superman 1, and I'd drop her or something. "Yes Mr. and Mrs. Wareman, that puddle of goo in the middle of the Hollywood Freeway
is
your daughter. I'll try to do better next time."
Actually, I have spent a lot of time thinking on the tell her - don't tell her question, longer actually than I have spent on the love her - don't love her question, because I have an answer to the second one. I just don't want to not be with her. And, I don't know what she'd want if I told her, except I know she'd want to ride the salami, and I don't know if I could handle him fucking my girlfriend. I know he's me, but what if she loved the salami, or he loved her? Or whatever.
To avoid someone seeing the other me go in and out of my apartment, or worse flying in or out, I have been driving my car to two "safe" parking lots, and only changing into the other me once I am somewhere I know there is no camera.
Tonight I'm in spot number two, a hotel on Katella near Disneyland. I pop down into the alleyway behind a strip mall next door, smelling of half eaten Chinese food and a few other things I can't recognize. Despite that, I am able to close my eyes, listen to myself breathe, find the inner hand, make it squeeze the light, and grab my pants before they fall off. I am barefoot, and the trash bins do not restrain the goop dripping from them very well, which is why the alleyway is number two on the spot list.
I have found one accommodation, a kind of stretchy tights/underwear thing that fit both the original and other me. They are ever so slightly large on me (a little extra air flow around the bratwurst turns out to be mildly entertaining), and just a tad tight around the salami, which is probably good so that it doesn't become an extra airfoil during flight. They guarantee that I will never be overexposed, at least I hope they do. I continue to refer to them as "underwear" given that Jen already has too much questionable information. There is a chest covering version of them, which I have yet to try.
Holding my pants up, I walk over into the well lighted, but uncameraed, parking lot next to the Express Hotel, wipe my feet off with a paper towels I keep in the back, hop into Starbuck, put my shoes on, and head out. Harbor to the 22 to the 405 to the 710 and I'm home in time to shower, change, and get back in Starbuck, back on the 710, back on the 405, etc., etc., etc.....
I'm not home much, Halloween is mad at me, Jen is not sure about me, the Fog Dude is pissed, I haven't seen my parents in three weeks, and the radio is telling me that a homeless man was injured by falling glass downtown last night. Being Superman sucks.
Captain Amos is already there when I arrive, and so is Taylor. I don't even try to get in her pants this morning. She gives me a puzzled look.
"First Officer Packer," she says, "Did you know I am allowed free transit to Hawaii with your flight?"
I give her my puzzled look.
She switches to a fake deep manly sort of voice, "No, Ms. Mankat, I did not, but I have a beautiful girlfriend and my father would fire you if you went with us. Can I have my flight plan now, please?"
Back to her normal voice, "But of course First Office Packer, here is your 461 to Kona plan. I purposefully left you 2,000 pounds of fuel short, just to see if you are paying attention."
I take the folder, shake my head, and mumble my way to an empty table. Captain Amos apologizes for me, and is soon sitting at the table next to me.
"Decided to be an ass this morning?," he asks.
"Jen and I are having issues. My fault totally, but still takes the fun out of cheating on her."
A hearty laugh comes from the captain. "You need to work it out. She's not one in a million, she's one in a lot more than that."
I grab the paperwork without responding, and we check to make sure Ms. Mankat was joking about not putting enough fuel in the plane to get to our destination. In fact, she has given us a little extra, noting that the wind reports have been sketchy. Captain Amos gives me the paperwork to turn in and heads to the head. I take the hint.
"Sorry I was snarly before Taylor, it's been a bad few days."
"Hit the beach this afternoon, and I expect a big smile next week," she says, giving me a big one of her own.
"Done." I smile kinda lamely at her, but it's the best I can do. The captain and I walk out to the gate, and do our jobs as quietly as possible. He decides that he will fly the plane to Hawaii and I will do the return. Maybe he's afraid that I would fly the plane into the ocean instead of landing it. Little does he know that I would walk away from that.
Or maybe not. Reminds me that there is one set of tests I have not done. I have fallen from a few hundred feet into the ocean, run my head literally into the sand, and bounced off of many a canyon wall. I have not tried stopping a bullet, or a knife, or a rocket, or a rock, and I have no idea how protected I am when I am me, not him. Really don't want to stab myself to find out either.
On the other hand, I still get paper cuts and they are still as annoying as they always were. I got sunburned on the beach (but was pasty white again after flying around that night. The light works better than aloe.). When I hit my toe in the dark on a table or bed post, it still hurts like hell.
We push back right on time, wait in line behind eight other aircraft, and then I once again get to marvel at how smoothly Captain Amos gets us in the air. I can't do it as nicely with or without the plane. No cloud cover today, but a sharp and unexpected change in wind direction about 18,000 feet up which launches us into 30 seconds of heavy turbulence. Flying on my own I have experienced that kind of turbulence up close and personal. It makes me appreciate having the mass of aluminum around me. I got tossed half way to the ground the last time I hit that big a bounce without warning, while the 757 moves a few feet and resets itself back to equilibrium.
At altitude the air is smooth as glass today, and I set about picking the captain's brain. I have always relied on his career guidance, and I decided months ago that there was no reason to change. Without knowing it, he's helped me build a plan for the next two to three years. Beyond that, of course, the only planning I need is estate.
The plan is simple. It all depends on me actually learning to fly, run, and whatever else I can do. That might be the bug in it.
It says have a quiet year. Secret activity only. Save some lives, stop convenient smugglers, eliminate a few nukes, destroy scattered weapons caches. Learn the world close up, not from 10,000 miles away or 35,000 feet above.
Then go public, though I have not decided what the agenda should be. The Captain, without knowing what he was doing, convinced me to have the quiet phase, and has helped me target a few targets. Lately we've been talking about how to make permanent changes in the world. Jen thinks you can't. Captain Amos thinks you can, but even he stops short of thinking he knows how.
He makes the usual perfect landing in Kona, and we head off to play golf with an American crew we met a month ago. I play like I fly (by myself, not in the plane). I think I'm pointed in the right direction, but every shot is in the trees or in the water. I lose $50, four balls, and the honor of Mountain Pacific Airlines. Captain Amos threatens to make me run home behind the aircraft. I would, except that I'm sure I would dent the plane.
Chapter 6
On a "normal" night in Hawai'i, I wait until after midnight to head out for my running track, but it's only 11:30 and I can't wait any longer. I close my eyes, listen to my breathing, find my inner hand, grab the light, speak my magic word, and let the feeling come. It starts in my middle and spreads through every inch of me, warm and strong and stuff I can't possibly name. Some nights I think about abandoning the run to sit on the bed and just turn the power on and off all night.
Running clothes on, I look through the peeper in the door to make sure no one is out in the hall to see the other me leaving my room, and hit the road. Ali'i Drive winds along the coast, dark houses full of sleeping people on both sides, short glimpses of the dark ocean, waves crashing noisily against the rocks. It's me and an occasional mongoose or squirrel (not moose and squirrel), until I get to the empty shopping center, and then up the hill.
The hill and the stop light have become the pathway to my power. Something about climbing that giant hill, the ocean endless behind me, then having the light turn green at the top. Probably another stupid light trick playing with my head, but it's there just the same. Only tonight I know not to turn right.
In the comics, Spiderman gets these wavy lines over his head, but that doesn't mean he knows what's going on, just that something bad is. I have no wavy lines, but I know. No right turn. There's a point on a hill a hundred yards or so down the road where something bad is happening.
The light turns green and I cross the highway. A small two lane road winds up from there into a residential neighborhood of kinda dumpy houses on nice size lots. I cut right 10 feet in, onto the dirt of someone's backyard, through a hole in their fence.
The black volcanic soil is wet and should be cool beneath my feet, but it isn't. I'm barefoot, or rather he's barefoot, but what should be cool, squishy not quite mud in my toes is just wet dirt. I have a huge advantage in life over him.
To him, the temperature is always cool. Flying across LA on a warm summer night, the temperature is cool. Flying supersonic and heating my clothes (sorry, his clothes) to the point they burn, feels cool (temperature wise). Climb to 35,000 feet, where the instruments on my 757 would say the outside air temp is minus 40 degrees, and the temperature is cool. Only Pele can make him feel anything else. A few inches from fresh lava, and the temperature changes to "warm." We haven't touched the lava to see if it burns, because I'm not that stupid. The light wants me to, but I resist.