Authors: Jeremy Scott
I have to admit, the actual schoolwork in this place was pretty awesome. Not the first half of the day, “the boring half,” as I referred to it. That was math and English and the rest of the usual subjects. History was pretty cool, though, I suppose.
The truly awesome part about school kicked in after lunch when we had Superhero Studies, which I simply called “the greatest class ever invented.” As you might suspect, this class had my complete attention—for instance, I learned that there are documents far older than the Bible that talk about men with special abilities and powers. Each day held some amazing revelation like that, sometimes several. It was as though school officials had taken a random polling sample to determine what the students wanted to learn and then just turned those survey answers into the curriculum.
Every Friday, for the last hour of the day, Mrs. Crouch would hold a superhero Q&A. Anything we wanted to ask about powers or heroes or villains. And for the most part, she answered every question.
During the first Friday Q&A, I had been content to simply listen. I got so caught up in hearing her answers to the other kids’ questions, I didn’t even ask one of my own. I just gaped in wonder and soaked it all in. But on the second time around, I was a bit more comfortable in the environment and more familiar with the teachers and students in the room. I wasn’t going to stay on the sidelines again.
After some exceedingly boring questions about superhero politics from Bentley—God love him, no one could get more excited about mundane things than Bentley—Freddie managed to get Mrs. Crouch switched over to the subject of how NPZs work. I pictured a giant futuristic generator harnessing electromagnetic energy, but it turns out they’re a lot less complicated than that. NPZs are caused by empowered people called blockers. The power that blockers have is to block out all powers within a certain area and range.
“What’s the range?” No surprise that the question came from me since I spent most of my life acutely aware of distances and ranges.
“Well, Mr. Sallinger, it’s different for everyone. Most powers vary slightly in their strength from hero to hero. You might ultimately be able to move larger or heavier objects with your telekinesis than your father, for instance. And it’s the same with blocking. Most blockers project an NPZ that’s roughly round in perimeter shape and maybe fifty to one hundred yards wide. Typically, they have to be pretty close to the area they want to block.”
Henry piped up. “So you’re telling me that there’s a person sitting in a room somewhere in this building and that this person is creating the NPZ for the entire school?” He didn’t sound much like he believed her, but I had quickly learned that Henry just always sounded that way. Know-it-alls are always skeptical of new information because they operate on the assumption that there is no information that is new to them.
“There is, Mr. Gardner,” Mrs. Crouch responded, leaving out much of the added detail we’d all expected.
“Does that mean they never leave the school?” James wondered aloud. He was turning out to be a very sensible and levelheaded guy, even if he was a little too wrapped up in his teleporting business for a seventh-grader. “Or does it mean that the school’s not an NPZ at night?”
“The no-powers condition is dependent on this person’s presence, and the school is still a no power zone at night, Mr. Gregory. He or she is a permanent resident here. It’s a sacrifice, one made in order to provide security and protection for you and your fellow students and your families.”
“So it’s like the memory dude out in the real world?” This time it was Freddie again, who, judging by his tone, was quite impressed with himself for knowing about the memory dude. I must confess it was news to me, and I wanted to learn more.
“Yes, exactly, Mr. Wheeler.” Mrs. Crouch appeared to be finished speaking on the subject of the memory dude, which simply wasn’t going to work for me.
“Wait,” I began. “What memory dude?” My father had made mention of some special memory-related powers that helped keep superheroes flying under the radar—sometimes literally—of the American public. But I wasn’t sure if that was related to what Freddie was talking about or not.
Fred either assumed I had directed my question at him, or he just didn’t care, because he answered before Mrs. Crouch could. “There’s this guy that uses his powers to keep us hidden from the real world. You know, so they don’t find out superheroes exist.”
“Custodians, Mr. Wheeler, and that is correct. Paul Weatherby is his name, and he is probably the most powerful custodian among us. His mind is capable of perpetually shielding other heroes from the public. And that’s how many of your parents stay safe and hidden from view.”
This concept didn’t make sense to me. And since we only had an hour a week to ask anything we wanted, I wasn’t going to stop digging. “How does it work?”
“Well, Mr. Sallinger, the nature of what we do out in the real world—fighting crime and fighting other empowered individuals who have less-than-selfless motives—dictate that it often will take place in public … out in front of anyone who happens to see it. Mr. Weatherby is able to keep them from …” she paused, searching for her words, “remembering what they see.” Then, as if sensing my lingering confusion, she added, “If custodians go zipping through the air in Manhattan, people are going to see them. Or if they slam a villain up against the Sears Tower, people are going to see it. But even though they see what’s happening, the memory fades almost immediately, leaving a fuzzy, hazy shadow in its place. And that shadow is the end result of Mr. Weatherby’s abilities. It’s like the memory is never allowed to form or be stored by the brain in the first place, making it impossible to recall. Without him, we’d be placed in greater danger from the spotlight that comes naturally with what we do out there.”
My mind always raced to the worst-case scenarios in life. “How many people like Paul Weatherby are there?” I was worried about my own memories. Could it be that I had been a witness to some amazing display of powers but had forgotten all about it due to some memory-hacker like this guy?
Mrs. Crouch’s demeanor changed slightly for just a hair of a second, and then she regained her composure. Most of the sighted kids probably didn’t even notice it, but I could always tell with things like this. She didn’t want to keep going down this road. “He is the only one.”
There was a murmur in the room, which she quickly sought to quell.
“He is the only one strong enough, I should say. There are others with similar powers but at only a fraction of the range—able to blanket a small building, for example—but not the entire earth. None of the others are nearly strong enough to disguise
all
the heroes like he does. Throughout our history, there have been many with the more powerful version of this gift, but they always came from the same genealogy—the same family. Mr. Weatherby is simply the last of his line, and there is no one left for him to pass his power on to.”
“Couldn’t he just have kids?” Henry announced his plan as though it was the most obvious thing in the universe. He could have added the word “duh” at the end, and it would have fit the tone perfectly.
Another pause from Mrs. Crouch. “He had children once, Mr. Gardner. But they were killed.”
The room went silent, and I now understood her apparent reluctance. The story she’d been asked to tell had a sad ending. Bentley didn’t let the sober atmosphere disrupt his learning, though. “And when he dies?”
It was a question that didn’t really need an answer, though we all hoped the obvious one was wrong. Mrs. Crouch, however, confirmed our fears. “Our actions and our cities will no longer be hidden.”
For several beats, no one said a thing. Mrs. Crouch finally spoke again. “Let’s call it a day on that subject, kids, and move on to something else. Surely someone else has a question about a different subject.”
“What about Believers?” I blurted out, not waiting even a second for another kid to beat me to the punch. I knew this question would be a bit of a curveball, but I didn’t care. I’d heard of the Believers twice since learning of my powers, both times merely overhearing the conversations of upperclassmen during lunch or in the hallway. They made the Believers sound like boogeymen, which made me want to learn more about them pronto.
“Believers,” she simply repeated back at me, like she was weighing her response. “Well, Mr. Sallinger, I’d like to know if you’d be willing to tell me a little bit more about why you’re asking. Where you heard the term, that sort of thing. I’ll answer your question, but I’d like to know what you know first.”
“Well…” I began in my usual manner, “I’ve just heard other kids in school talking about them a couple times, is all.”
Mrs. Crouch let out a long, deep breath. It struck me that I’d probably ruined her plans to lighten the mood when I simply changed one awkward subject for another. “A very long time ago …” she said haltingly, “before biblical times …” Another pause, though I couldn’t tell if she was trying to choose her words carefully or was just being dramatic. “There is a story of an empowered man who had all the powers and abilities in one. He could fly and had super strength; every power you’ve ever heard of, this man supposedly had. In the more modern texts, he’s called Elben. In some of our oldest historical records, he’s referred to only as ‘the one who can do all.’” Another huge pause ensued.
“Elben was the leader of the Haladites, an ancient army of evil that spread over two-thirds of the earth before they were defeated. The Haladites were the first group on record to attempt to use their powers collectively for selfish gain—sort of the godfathers of organized crime and modern super-villains. Together their combined powers overwhelmed the protectors of that era, who were unprepared for such a concentrated effort.”
“How were they defeated?” Freddie asked.
“By perhaps the most famous group of custodians in history, an outfit known as the Ables. The Ables were the first group of custodians to band together for the good of the world, and of course, only did so in response to the rampaging Haladites. They were, quite literally, the only good-hearted six custodians left standing in the wake of Elben’s march across Europe. In one of the most famous battles in our secret history, the Ables leveraged cunning and quick thinking to trick the Haladites into thinking their numbers were much larger than they really were.”
“Confused and frightened, Elben’s fearsome army panicked and scattered, and the Ables concentrated their abilities on the main villain himself, winning the day.” She paused, perhaps considering whether to finish this particular story. “Convinced Elben’s abilities posed a permanent threat to the entire planet’s population, they executed him right then and there in a place we now refer to as the Bleeding Grounds.”
Mrs. Crouch took a very large deep breath before continuing.
“So, children, ‘believers’ is a word used to describe modern-day custodians who are part of a kind of order—an almost religious group that not only believes the old-world stories are true but also believes he’s coming back.”
I couldn’t help but interject at that point. “What do you mean, ‘coming back?’”
“In some of our texts, some of the oldest ones, there are prophesies. And one such prophecy suggests—according to some interpretations, not all—that ‘the one who can do all’ will return. That one day, the world will see another custodian with all the powers at once. The Believers treat this prophecy the way Christians treat the Bible or Muslims treat the Qur’an. They treat it like a religion.”
“You mean they worship this Elben guy? The guy that might come back?” Bentley joined the discussion. It never took more than a few seconds for him to become interested in whatever the topic happened to be. He was the most voracious learner I’d ever met.
“Yes,” Mrs. Crouch declared. “They essentially worship an individual that may or may not appear one day.”
Everyone seemed deep in thought for a moment or two before Bentley spoke up again. “Do you believe the prophecies, Mrs. Crouch?”
She spoke so fast, she nearly cut him off. “Of course not,” she said dismissively. “They’re reading far too much into these texts—some of them are just markings on the wall of a cave! They see what they want to see. They infer what they want to infer.” For good measure, she added, “And I don’t believe in reincarnation either.”
This was a huge relief to me. I probably sighed out loud. Mrs. Crouch had just told me about the boogeyman but then instantly squashed him like a bug. I wanted to hug her.
“Now,” she continued, “that’s not to say the world will never see another multi-powered individual. In fact, there are people with dual powers that we know of. Some people call them Jekyll-Hydes, because it’s like two personalities. They have two powers, but most can only use one at a time, and it depends on their emotional and mental state. They’re rare, but they exist.
“Basic logic tells you it’s possible for a person with all known powers to exist. It’s just math and statistics. It’s going to happen someday. It could well be millions of years from now, but even the rarest possibility sees its day in the sun.”
Then she gave the boogeyman CPR, resuscitated him, and offered him a glass of water.
As though sensing our fear—I can only assume that the other students were just as terrified of a multi-powered monster rampaging through their bedrooms as I was—Mrs. Crouch decided to try and help ease the worry. “There are things just as scary as a man with many powers, kids, and maybe some things even scarier. There are powers that would send chills down your spine.”
On further reflection, I decided perhaps her intention wasn’t to make us feel better after all. Maybe she was trying to toughen us up or something.
“There are records of a woman in the first century who could turn into a black hole and suck up anything and everything around her that she wanted, sending them to some nothingness on the other side of the universe. In 500 BC, there was a man named Arbor, and everyone who ever touched him died instantly. There’s a man alive today, in custody, mind you, that can melt people just by pointing at them.”