Alice watched the video again. It was a short video clip from the news, one in which a freight ship captain described an incredible rescue and the extraordinary people that saved his life.
"They were amazing," said the captain. She could see that he had one arm in a sling. She supposed he'd somehow gotten injured during all the fighting. "I saw things that I thought I'd never see again. Their strength, their speed, and...I mean, one of them even flew! It sure reminded me of the days when Divinity was out there, doing this same kind of thing. I owe them my life."
It was not the first time someone had brought up the name "Divinity" while reporting this story. In fact, the more research Alice did, the more she was starting to notice reports of superhuman rescuers occurring in the news. Events like this, a freight ship rescued by pirates, villagers pulled from mud slides, soldiers rescued from behind enemy lines, and all by an anonymous group of people who seemed to have powers far beyond mortal man.
But Alice knew this wasn't the first time this had happened. Everyone knew it. It was all starting to look a lot like when he was still alive.
Alice opened another video she'd found. It was one that had gone viral the year before she was born, one of the most prolific videos ever filmed. It had been instantly uploaded, retweeted, shared, and reposted by tens of millions of accounts across the world the moment it posted. Very few people knew the originating account for that video, or even which media platform it had come from, and those that did know were keeping it a guarded secret. Still, no one doubted it was real. It had been studied more intensely than any video file in history. Alice had read some of the articles on the web about it. Some were written by conspiracy theorists, some by investigative journalists. At times, the line between those two titles could be frustratingly thin. Still, their commentary made it clear that this might be the most important video ever posted on social media.
The first four seconds of the video fade in to and focus on the face of the most influential man of the past forty-seven years before the video's release: the superhero Divinity. His age, like his real name, was a closely guarded secret by the government, but most people agreed he was at least in his mid-seventies. It wasn't because he looked his age. In fact, the man could have passed for a graceful late fifty-year-old. His physique and his face seemed to belong to someone who just didn't quite age like the rest of humanity. Even his hair, which was faded from black to gray along the sides, was still full and healthy as any man twenty years his junior would wish it to be. However, high resolution still-frames would reveal an increasing number of creases and wrinkles forming at the man's eyes, mouth, and forehead. Some self-proclaimed experts on this superhuman hero would later claim this was an obvious sign of sudden and intense aging, as though the years this hero had somehow cheated were catching up to him in a matter of months.
Many people were surprised to see him in a simple white dress shirt with no tie, the collar unbuttoned. In all of his press photos, he'd always worn his white and gold body glove, his cape around his shoulders and his golden symbol shining on his chest. It was the first time the public had ever seen him dressed like one of them. He was seated at some kind of table or desk, the background appearing to be a handsome country home interior. More analysis of the image would highlight the reflections in the glass of a cabinet behind Divinity. The reflection appeared to be that of another man in the room, one dressed in a long, khaki coat. His face is indistinguishable. The hero did not seem to be alone when he made his video, or someone may have made it for him.
As Divinity begins to speak, a warm, fatherly smile beams on his face, framed by dimples and a square jaw. His eyes are a pale green. Some close observers will compare these images to older ones, noting that his eye color has faded over the years.
"My dearest fellow citizens of mankind," Divinity began in a deep voice showing a hint of the gravel of age, "I hope you will forgive me for being so informal as I send this message to you all from my own home." Later, after years of careful analysis by the best forensic minds in the world, experts would eventually admit that they are unable to figure out the actual location of this home based on any clues in the video. "As I approach a very important milestone in my life, I wish to first express gratitude to all of you for your loving support and confidence in my long career."
The image of Divinity's face is replaced by a slide show, a montage of color and black-and-white photos of Divinity in the act of rescuing lives or socializing with fellow rescuers and public servants at disaster sites. There is one of him lifting rubble from the collapsed nuclear reactor in Japan, one of him standing with rescued child soldiers in the Congo, and even one of him shaking hands with both Arab and Israeli leaders at the legendary summit where the greatest peace that region had ever known had been achieved. In every one of the photos, he is positive, smiling, and tender. In not a single one of them is he alone. He is always featured with others in frame. Experts would later point out that about a quarter of the photos were not from any known news site, periodical, or social media account. Many will assume that they were from Divinity's own personal collection of photos from his career.
The "career" Divinity referred to was a forty-seven year crusade to accomplish a single goal: to stem the loss of life in every war, act of terrorism, and large-scale disaster in the world. His success in this mission had shaped the world, both in government and society. Even small religions and cults had begun to worship this hero as a heavenly savior, though he profusely discouraged them from doing so in public interviews. This did not always stop people from practicing these beliefs.
"My work, as all of you know, has been to cherish human life and to protect it. I have not been alone in this work. Many of you have joined me by putting your talents and time and energy into law enforcement, public safety, humanitarian aid, health care, urban development, and countless other worthwhile, noble pursuits. I wish for us all to pause and admire what we have accomplished."
The slide show stops, and the image of Divinity's face once again fades into view. Tears trace shining trails down his cheeks, and his smile softens until it seems sad.
"It is with gratitude in my heart, as well as pride in our accomplishments, that I make this announcement. Effective immediately, I am officially retiring from public life. I will immediately cease from all public activities, including rescue, peacekeeping, and disaster recovery." The tears continue to glisten on his cheeks, but his voice does not waver. His hands are folded serenely in front of him, hands that have lifted steel beams, stopped missiles, and lifted the oppressed. They are as strong as they are gentle.
"But this does not mean the work will stop. The rest of my associates, publicly known as the Champions, will continue to work with governments and agencies to promote global security and peace for all." A photo briefly fades into view, a group portrait of a dozen individuals, both men and women, in a variety of dress. Some wear tactical garments like special forces soldiers. Others, mechanically enhanced plated armor, like medieval knights. A few wear occupational clothing: laboratory coats, coveralls, and dress suits. All of them are gathered around the upright and impressive figure of Divinity himself. They are his emissaries and operatives, a task force that magnifies Divinity's influence and effectiveness in his missions. Most people do not believe them to be superhuman, but highly trained and genius individuals.
"The rest of my work, dear friends, I leave to you. Your hands lifted our societies and nations to unprecedented states of prosperity and freedom. I am thankful I got to play a part in all that, but I could not have done it alone, without support and cooperation from the public and governments leaders. To those of you who believe it takes someone like me to carry on with these goals, I hope you prove yourselves wrong someday. But rest assured that there will be more like me in the future. We are out there, whether we are publicly known or not. Somewhere there are unselfish, powerful people going about doing good, and in time, you will come to know them. Until that day, I leave the world in your capable hands.
"To all of you, my friends and associates and fellow soldiers of peace, I bid you a fond farewell."
At this point, the video fades. These were the final images the world would ever have of its greatest hero in recorded history.
Within six months of this videos release, many people accepted that Divinity had either died or turned his back on a world that still needed him. Within a year, the blissful peace experienced by the nations inhabiting the Middle East shattered, and the stock market began to fall. Within two years, the world was shaken in the grip of a worldwide pandemic, an aggressive respiratory disease, and the stock market crashed altogether. Riots broke out in major cities in America, Australia was ravaged by wildfires, and terrorist activities quadrupled in frequency and severity.
Within five years of the release of the video, people forgot the world heroes created.
Alice rewound the video, pausing on the picture of Divinity lifting the rubble of the collapsed power plant.
Is he back? If he is, why isn't he showing himself like he did in the past? If it's not him, is this someone new?
It occurred to her that this might not be Divinity and the Champions, that this might be someone else. The possibility of other people in the world like her, people with unique abilities, made her head spin. Here she was wishing she knew how to use her powers to help people, and there were people like her out there right now doing it. A whole group, it seemed, of people like her.
People like me.
Her experience in front of the Morena Rose had taught her a lot about herself. She didn't have the first clue of how to make herself helpful to others. She'd been lucky distracting the man from Christine, but she might have caused a lot of trouble. So she had a choice to make. She could continue trying to figure it all out on her own, or she could seek out others like her to teach her what she was and how she could use her power. If she wanted to become more than she was, if she wanted to be the daughter her father deserved, she would need help. That was a choice that made itself, really.
I have to find them.
**********
But it would be weeks before she would ever make contact with the mysterious rescuers from the news. The summer was slowly dying, and nearly seven weeks had passed since she had watched the Fourth of July fireworks while drifting over the James River. It hadn't mattered to her that she'd already decided it was too risky to fly near the city. She couldn't pass up the chance to see the fireworks show. The blossoming lights reflected in the moving water of the James like a broken mirror still burned in her memory, and she was eager to be airborne again.
Alice had been working at Morena Rose, earning a little money and a making a lifelong friend in Christine. Christine had taken to Alice immediately, perhaps because of the bond they shared from their experience on the day of Alice's interview. Eventually, Christine had introduced Alice into her larger circle of friends and had even arranged for them to go on group dates together. The latest attempt by Christine to improve Alice's social life was a boy named Thomas. In fact, this was Alice's second date with Thomas, the first having been to a rock-climbing gym on the outskirts of town. Alice had hoped her first date with Thomas would also be her last. It was nothing against him, she knew. He was handsome enough. He was about her height, and blond, and well-groomed. He held out chairs, opened doors for her, and avoided saying things that were generally stupid. But Alice had just not found him of any romantic interest. His sense of humor was as dry as burned toast, making her count the minutes until the end of the date. Also, Alice had never been partial to blonds. She'd sworn to herself that she was done with Thomas by the time he dropped her off at her apartment and embraced her in the world's stiffest, most awkward hug.
And yet, here she was at a carnival game, cheering him on as he hurled softballs at painted, stacked milk bottles.
"Yes!" Thomas cried in triumph, his ball pinging into the little pyramid of bottles. But his shout of victory quickly became a moan of disappointment as two of them refused to fall. "I just don't understand how you did it. You made the luckiest shot of all time, I swear!"
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Alice shrugged. She had to admit that was exactly what it had been: good luck, bad aim, and worse judgment. She had thrown the ball too hard and too low. She'd hit the platform on which the bottles stood, a thick wooden board fixed to a metal pipe driven into the ground. The pipe had bent, the board had come loose, and the milk bottles had scattered like a house of cards. The man running the game had scratched his head and wondered aloud at how the pipe could have become so weakened that it could be damaged by a thrown ball. But he'd also laughed at the girl's luck and admitted she'd knocked down all the bottles in a single throw. As a reward, he'd given her the stuffed animal of her choice, a sea turtle the size of her torso.
The real luck, of course, was that the ball had ricocheted off somewhere where it couldn't be found. Alice was pretty sure the blow had busted its stitching open. That would have been harder to explain.
Carnival games were just one of the many things to do at Busch Gardens. It was Williamsburg's theme park, though it had some things Alice had never seen in other parks. Sure, it had roller coasters, but it had European cultural performances, ethnic cuisine, and shops filled with everything from toys and candy to hand-crafted domino masks in the style of the Italian Renaissance. It was Alice's first time there, and she was sure she would have enjoyed it more if she had not had to pretend to laugh at Thomas's dry wit.
"C'mon, Alice," Christine shouted as privately as she could over the sound of the music. "Go talk to him! You know he likes you. You left a really good impression on him last time."
I'll bet, she thought to herself. The first date had been a week before, and Thomas had been openly impressed by the fact that she was able to keep up with him on the rock-climbing wall. Even without extra abilities, Alice thought, it was no great feat. He had poor form and no experience. He'd been aggressively hounding her ever since. Alice was beginning to consider this a lesson in self-restraint.
"He digs you," said Christine. "He thinks you're really cute." Christine then made a point of looking Alice up and down, as though appraising her. "Personally, I don't see what the big deal is. Why would he want you when he could have all of this?" Christine then gestured at her figure with outstretched fingers, posing like the white marble statue they saw and laughed at earlier.
Alice laughed at her friend and looked down at her outfit.
"Is that what I have to compete with? It doesn't make me feel like I bring much to the table." She joked.
Christine clucked her tongue. "You know I'm just playing. I've got the curves, as you well know, but you've got that muscle tone. The next time I go to the gym, I'm bringing you with me so you can give me some pointers."
It was something Alice was use to. She was tall and athletic, though she'd never played a sport in her life. Her mother always thought it would give her away.
"Anyway, you should totally go walk with him. We've been kind of separated by gender enough, don't you think?"
Perhaps not, thought Alice, shooting another glance at where Thomas strolled beside Christine's date, a quiet boy whose name Alice couldn't remember. Thomas looked at the other boy and blurted out, "I bet all these games are rigged. They just choose people to win every once in a while so we don't see it's all a scam!"
We could stand to sit apart from the boys a little while longer.
"What do you have to lose?" challenged Christine. "Flirt with him. Let him spend a little money on you. It's what he wants, and it'll be fun. I mean, what were you planning on doing today besides this, anyway? Apply to school?"
Alice knew she was right. With her arms crossed over her chest, Alice would look to anyone like she was obviously trying to avoid her own date. Truthfully, she had been trying very hard to think about registering for college classes or socializing with friends, but her evenings were frequently becoming interrupted by a secret life, and Alice was beginning to wonder if it was more of a distraction than it was worth.
Alice removed her phone from her bag and checked the screen. A weather forecast swirled with greens and yellows and reds above a map of the Eastern United States. She placed one of her ear buds and listened to the weather report.
"Hurricane Natalia is predicted to make landfall on the coast of South Carolina this afternoon. Residents along Natalia's path are urged to evacuate. Experts predict wind speeds of up to one hundred and forty miles an hour and heavy rains. Many areas will likely experience flooding."
"Are you seriously on your phone right now?" interrupted Christine. "I can see you watching the weather channel or something. I have this feeling you're about to give me some excuse for why you're about to leave. You're a terrible liar by the way."
Alice snapped back to her conversation with her friend. She opened her mouth to refute it, and found nothing to say. Her mouth flapped open and closed, refusing to put any two syllables together to form a coherent word longer than "I". I must look like a gasping fish, she thought.
"I'm sorry," she said. "You're right. I don't have a real excuse, but I really want to go. Thomas is a nice guy. Really, he is, and I'm not doing this to get away from him, but I really have to go now."
"Mmm, hmm," Christine answered, apparently unimpressed but satisfied her suspicions were correct. "I thought so. Don't worry, I'll make up something for you. Just promise me one thing."
She asked her what it was.
"One of these days you gotta tell me what you've been ditching work and parties and movies and stuff for. I know it's not because you keep having relatives over."
Alice realized that if she was going to keep disappearing from her everyday life, she was going to have to tell better stories or embrace a very public life as freak of nature.
"Alice," called Thomas, pointing up at a roller coaster as the cars roared along a track above their heads, "we gotta do this!"
Alice mumbled an apology as she dashed away towards the park exit. She rushed past groups energetic friends, secretive couples, and frantic families. She burst through the clattering turnstiles and into the gray afternoon.
She looked above to a sky that was a blackboard in desperate need of a washing. Streaks of white lashed across a dull, slate ceiling of storm clouds.
Alice pressed the ear buds in and played a random song from her father's old playlist, "Something Just Like This" by Coldplay and The Chainsmokers. The familiar lyrics about superheroes and a blossoming romance played accompanied by the thump of the bass and the chime of keyboards.
The music played softly in her ear as she zipped up her jacket, the familiar words and notes seeming to her like a sign that this might be the time.
The weather reports promised a rough afternoon for flying. It was stormy, but warm. That was partially because it was simply August in Virginia, which meant occasional gray skies and warm thunderstorms. It was mostly because she was flying south, where headline news suggested Natalia would be kissing land for the first time. She was, quite literally, flying into a hurricane.
She arrived back at her apartment and fished a backpack filled with clothes from the depths of her closet. Her mother was still at work and was not due to come home for hours yet. Outside, the weather was turning sour, and she guessed her friends would be making their own escape from the theme park any minute.
She got dressed as quickly as she could, knowing that if she was going to find what she was looking for, she would probably need to leave soon. She took one last moment to stuff her hair under her beanie and put her gloves and ski goggles on. Everyone outside had long since sought shelter from the clouds and wind that threatened rain, so there was no one there to see as she quietly slipped through the window and into empty air, her body gently arched back like an Olympic diver off the high dive. Within minutes, Alice was high enough that the low, grumbling clouds shielded her from the eyes of people below. That also meant the landscape below was nothing to her so much a smudge of trees and roads and rivers in the distance.
She paused to consult a GPS unit that was tethered to her thick coat. The device's soft glow marked her general location with a green arrow over a simple map of the ground she couldn't see below. She'd bought the device after her first attempt to contact the mysterious heroes some five weeks previous. She'd heard that there was an earthquake in California and tried to fly out to see if she could catch them in action. The devastation left by the tremor was terrible, and four individuals with superhuman abilities were later reported to have been seen digging survivors out of the remains of homes and businesses, but Alice never arrived to see them. After hours of flying towards California, she realized she had no idea where she was, the GPS on her phone rendered useless outside the range of the cell phone towers it relied on. Defeated, she tried looking for the interstate. She eventually landed near a truck stop in Wyoming several hours after the heroes had reportedly disappeared again. Dejectedly, she took a Greyhound all the way home riding next to a man named Steve who played air guitar the whole way. That had not been her only attempt to make contact with them, but they all had ended in similar failure. Every outing had some sort of lesson like that for her, and so she'd tried to be prepared when she went out into the storm.
**********
This time it was the rain that got the best of her. She flew for hours through headwinds that pelted her with icy droplets that felt as hard as pebbles. She was soaked through her coat within the first hour. She tried flying above the storm, only to find the higher she went, the colder it got. Her sopping clothing became ice against her skin, and she fell beneath the gray surface of the clouds once more to take what little comfort there was in the rain. She was constantly wiping the rainwater from the outside of her goggles and the fog from the inside. She was shivering, miserable, and wet.
The landscape below her passed in and out of view, frequently obscured by the angry clouds sweeping inland. She saw woodland, suburbs, and cities roll away, wondering how long it would be until someone saw her. Would she attract media attention like the heroes did? Or would she be dismissed as a tabloid rumor, along with aliens and the Jersey Devil? She hoped she never had to find out.
It was long, miserable hours of rough, cold flying that felt more like tumbling and whipping before the GPS finally announced she'd arrived in the right state.
Somewhere in South Carolina the weather became nearly impossible to fly through. The wind started hurling her in odd directions, despite her best efforts to fly straight. She had to brace against the wind with her arms just to keep the worst of the hail from shattering her ski goggles. Alice tried to consult her GPS unit to see exactly where she was, but the water had finally got to it, and it fizzled and died as she fumbled with its lifeless controls.
She descended feet-first through the clouds until she could make out a sprawling seaside city below. Once at treetop level she could see a suburban neighborhood, a nice one, lined with handsome homes blasted with the nearly horizontal rain and ice. She saw a river of water knee-deep coursing through the neighborhood streets and pooling in cul-de-sacs. Miles away, towards the ocean, She could barely make out the silhouette of a Ferris wheel. She squinted at it, sure it was swaying in the wind, though she had never seen a Ferris wheel do that.
For the first time since she'd been chasing the heroes she saw on the news, she had finally reached the scene of a disaster while it was still happening. She had once arrived in Florida after a tropical storm, only to realize they were long gone, having already done their work there of saving a floundering fishing boat off the coast. The same thing happened when she tried to make it to a deadly shootout between border patrol agents and drug smugglers in Arizona. She came just in time to see the beaten, handcuffed criminals being carted away. But this time she'd finally done it. She had arrived in time to see hurricane Natalia make landfall in a South Carolina resort town. With any luck, she hoped to see the heroes there as well.
There was little happening in the small suburban neighborhood over which she hovered, so she decided to head towards the Ferris wheel. She passed over more neighborhoods, strip malls, and industrial parks, many of them flooded ankle-deep or more. For the most part, these places were battened down or abandoned, with the only people out doors being those who were packing a few bags and other belongings into their vehicles. Garbage and refuse flew through the air, some of them attaching themselves to fences and trees. Alice suddenly felt a stab of pity for the people who would have to sort out this ruin after the storm passed.
She was still a few miles from the Ferris wheel when she passed a trailer park. Of all the areas in the city she'd seen, this one was flooded the worst. A river of water cascaded out of the trailer park and into the street. Vehicles shifted and drifted in the current, sometimes bumping into each other or the trailer homes. Alice gave a sudden, soft gasp of sorrow as she saw a few people wading through chest-deep water to get out of the area to higher ground, all the while carrying pets, small children, and trash bags of belongings on their shoulders.
She paused in the air above that trailer park, hoping this would be the place where those heroes would appear, if only to help some of these wet, trudging refugees fleeing from their own flooded homes. Surely, if there was anyone in the city that needed their help, that person could be found here in the rapids, refuse, and the refugees.
Something caught Alice's eye and made her heart jump in panic: a woman on top of a silver Mercedes pickup truck. The vehicle seemed out of place in the shabby trailer park, even more so in the middle of the dirty rapids. The woman clinging to the roof was old, how old Alice couldn't say, but almost certainly old enough to be her grandmother, with dark, crinkling skin and a few curlers still tangled in her stringy, dripping hair. Her precarious perch on top of the vehicle was made all the more dangerous by the fact the truck was slowly, inch by inch, drifting with the current. Alice could see clearly enough the terrified look in her wide, restless eyes, and the cry for help that was on her lips, even though the sound of it was lost in the roaring wind.
Alice scanned the sky around her, waiting, hoping for figures to drop out of the heavens to the woman's rescue. The skies were disappointingly empty, filled with nothing save the angry clouds and the ragged claws of the wind. Alice stared at the woman and wondered if she should run somewhere to get help.
She suddenly remembered a dark, lonely road she'd run a lifetime ago, when she'd left her own father dying in the dark to find help that would never arrive in time to save him.
"Go get help. Then come back for me. Do what I say."
Something gripped Alice's heart and squeezed as she realized she could not do it again. She couldn't run away and hope that help would arrive in time. She couldn't leave him there in the dark to die a second time.
The woman's cries startled her, bringing her back to the present. For the briefest moment, it was like she'd been there holding his hand all over again. But that time was gone. She was here, and no one else was.
There was no one to help that woman. No one but her. She knew she was not the kind of hero for this situation, but no other heroes were forthcoming. She was all this woman had. She would have to do.
