Deviation Actions
Literature Text
Thursday, 2/26
With his punishment overwith, Chris at first felt confident that he’d get through school with no trouble. Scott never showed up, and he somehow felt a renewed sense of attention towards his classwork, perhaps a mental lesson to focus more in class. However, in passing period, Chris once again absent-mindedly thought about working on his homework with the mind of Dr. Psyche, and this time, by pure accident, the short, huge-headed scientist took Chris’ place in the hallway. Several students noticed this, and some of the bullies who weren’t Scott gathered about.
“Nice costume, where’d you get it? Party City?”
“Hey, where you going, Chris? Dork-Con?”
“I hope that head is big enough to hold everything in that backpack, because it looks pretty empty to me!”
Chris considered using Dr. Pyche’s telekinetic powers to push away those hooligans, or even project images into their heads, but remembering that weaponizing his powers that way is what got him in trouble in the first place, instead he ran into the restroom, changed back, then came out, asking, “Hey, I saw that big-headed guy, he went that way,” pointing around the corner to E hall. Surprisingly, some of the bullies were convinced and followed that, while Chris himself continued on down C hall to 7th period.
Then, once school let out, his curiosity burst out like a jack-in-the-box puppet, and Chris decided to try an experiment.
Hiding behind a brick partition near the back of the campus, trying to stay out of sight of the nearest CCTV camera, Chris summoned the image of another hero, and within seconds, his dark brown hair, round thick-framed glasses, worn Dragonball Z T-Shirt and blue jeans gave way to a blond crew-cut with large green tactical goggles, a bulky green cargo vest covering a navy blue muscle shirt, coupled with a matching green backpack, bulging muscles from limb to limb, large yet lightweight blue wings, and skin-tight camouflage pants. The 12-year-old boy had just transformed into an adult visage of General Falcon, military ally to the Crusaders of Justice. With this form, Chris figured it’d be a matter of seconds to get home by flight, rather than the slow, clunky school bus, so with one jump, like on the moon he took to the air and rocketed off towards his neighborhood, feeling a wave of euphoria at being able to fly for the first time in his life. How many superheroes felt like this?
What Chris assumed was not the case, but was, was that the person he transformed into was being watched, from a hovering police drone, to the assistant manager’s daughter, several football players near the school, and a number of drivers. However, the latter two shrugged it off as just another hero in town, thinking nothing of it.
-----
“Hello, Lora,” Officer Bradley greeted his friend over her phone.
“Oh, hi, Zeke, I haven’t heard from you in a while!”
“I know, it has been a while. Uh, but could you pass this along to Lora Lastic for me?”
“Fire away, what does she need to know?”
“There’s these two robbers that burgled a boy’s house and made off with some boxes of what we believe to be comic books. We found their van but they ditched it.”
“Where?”
“Near a high-rise apartment complex downtown, ‘Hyperion Tower’, I think it’s called. We searched all the floors but couldn’t get any fingerprints to verify which apartment, though.”
“All right, I’ll have her down there before you can say ‘Right Here, Right Now’. Thanks,”
“Was that a new mission, Mom?” Mindy piped up while seated at the coffee table working on an essay.
“Did you finish your essay?” Lora asked as she hung up her phone.
She looked at the paper, and found she had just finished.
“Yeah, actually!”
“Anything else?”
Mindy looked at her stacks of math homework, spelling and reading homework, then answered, “The only thing I haven’t finished is my math homework, but I can do that right after we’re done! I promise!”
Thinking over the variables, Lora tilted her head then answered, “Okay, you can come.”
“Yippee!”
Mindy ran to the bathroom to lighten her cargo of clothes, then softened and morphed into Double Mindy, darting back into the living room. Likewise, Lora did the same while in her room; They wasted no time rushing to the car. Googling the address of Hyperion Tower, the Camaro sped off to the building. They parked in the shady portion of a lightly filled parking lot across the street, then hopped out and began to investigate.
The van belonging to the robbers was still here, but no driver. Being unlocked, they found the back end empty.
Lora noticed someone coming out of the revolving door, and told Mindy, “Quick, hide!”
In an instant, the two stretchy gum girls crouched against the van and morphed into a pair of white plastic boxes, color and all. Lora overheard one of them muttering, “Seems the boss wants another collectible, John. Maybe then we’ll get what we need to finally buy that new computer.”
“Drew, You idiot, that money’s for our credit card debt!”
“Oh, I keep forgetting about that.”
“Anyway, let’s get moving before the cops find us again. Close call last time.”
The girls waited for John and Drew to re-enter the van, while Lora morphed her head out and whispered to her daughter, “Try holding the car in place by the rear, I’ll hold the front. Sound good?”
“Awesome!”
Just as the van began to pull out of the parallel parking spot, Lora sprang out and created a barrier of rubber across the exit they tried to go through. Simultaneously, Mindy ducked behind the rear of the car and wrapped herself around its back tires, stretching her upper body away from the tailpipe to not inhale the fumes, and instead observing her mother.
“Hi there!” Lora’s head smirked before her whole body spread across the car like icing. John tried to floor it, but being unable to see where he was going caused him to veer the car straight into the base of a streetlight, denting the grille and forcing more of Lora into it. The wipers were jammed by the gum, as well. Then Lora oozed part of herself through a tiny gap in one window and began to push it downwards. John tried to push it back up with a button, but the heady scent of her seductive perfume leaking through the gap, moved his finger to the “down” button, letting more of it in.
Lora’s head slinked through, forming out of the shiny, reddish-pink mass, and she smiled in her ever-so-alluring fashion and said, “Why, hello there, aren’t you an unlikely pair of fellas?”
John, the driver, stammered in slight shock, unsure of what to say. But that wonderful smell and the strange woman’s gorgeous face compelled him to look for an answer. Drew wished this woman had breasts to show them, because, drooling all the while, everything about this super-sexy stretchy woman conjured a fantasy in his mind of what it’d be like to sleep with her this evening.
“H-Hi, ma’am, what can we do for you?” John stammered.
Lora’s upper body and arms rose from the rubber-gum as she stretched closer to the man’s face and spoke in a voice not unlike Jessica Rabbit’s, “I just need to know: Where did you send those boxes?”
“Boxes? Uh, what boxes?” John asked, confused.
Coiling one arm gently around his neck, Lora decided to kiss John on the cheek, sending waves of pleasure from the spot. Lora herself was somewhat grossed out by the smell of cheap cigars and what might have been whiskey.
Fortunately, that kiss opened up some mental clarity, for John took a deep breath and answered, “Oh yeah! This guy’s a collector who wanted a bunch of comics, so we sold it to them. He lives in apartment...what was it, Drew?”
Drew broke from his sexual fantasy to add, “Uh, apartment E209, John.”
“Thanks, you’ve all been a great help. But I gotta go now.”
“Hey, call me sometime, okay?” Drew asked.
Not wanting any more to do with these thugs, Lora stretched back away from the car, used her lower body to keep the car glued in place, pulled her phone out from a pocket in her skin, and called Officer Bradley, who answered that he’d send a car there immediately to pick up the thugs.
John and Drew had broken from Lora’s spell in the intervening time,
“What was that, man? I thought we were like...brainwashed or something!” Drew cried.
John slammed the gas again, but the gum prohibited the van from moving, jamming its tires. Lora just sat on the hood and yawned a little, waiting for the cop car to arrive. Sure enough, it came within 5 minutes.
One officer immediately set about arresting John and Drew, while the other walked up to Lora and stated, “Thank you, Ms. Lastic. Our case would’ve run cold without your help.”
Lora smirked, “That’s what I and the other heroes do: Clean up messes too big for the cops to handle.”
“What did the criminals tell you?”
“The comics were sold to a collector in apartment E209. I was going to go there anyway,” Lora evaluated while returning to normal shape.
“I can help in case things get ugly.”
“Good call, let’s go, then.”
Mindy detached herself from the car as she saw her mother coming by with a police escort.
“That was fun, mom!” The girl chirped.
“It’s not over yet, Double Mindy, we’ve still got a crook to catch!”
The three of them rode the elevator to the 5th floor, E, and followed a corridor to number 209.
“After you,” Lora suggested.
The policeman, an Asian named Wai Peng, banged on the door, demanding, “This is the police, open up!”
No answer.
“If you don’t open this door, we will use deadly force!”
“Do you want me to flip the deadbolt from the other side? Might save the door from damage that way,” Lora suggested.
“Sure, go ahead,”
And with that, Lora stretched her right arm beneath the door and flipped two knobs on the opposite side, allowing the group to enter.
The apartment was nothing special, except for the fact that there were two bedrooms of equal stature. Conveniently, they were labeled: “N. Bailey” and “C. Robinson”, the latter of which was occupied. Inside was a woman with short-cut blonde hair, a thin shirt and shorts. She looked up at her uninvited guests, put her hands up, and shrieked in panic, “Whatever it is, I didn’t do it!”
“You were collecting comics stolen from a 12-year-old boy’s room, weren’t you?” Officer Peng demanded.
“Stolen? What are you talking about? I bought them on craigslist, those guys just delivered them, I swear!”
Lora noticed that she sounded a little slurred in speech, like she was high on some drug. “This girl doesn’t sound sober, you might want to test her,” she suggested to the cop.
Officer Peng removed a breath tester from his belt, held it to her mouth, then asked, “Breathe into this.” Sure enough, after a few seconds, there was an 0.46% amount of alcohol in her breath.
Lora popped in another piece of evidence and asked, “Are you affiliated with Police Chief Nicholas Bailey?”
“Yeah, I’m his roommate, Carla. I pay half the rent, he pays the rest. What of it?”
“What about the names John and Drew? Familiar at all?”
Carla paused, then sighed, “I ran out of money and the rent was coming up, so those guys sold me this stuff on craigslist.”
“Boxes of comics, stolen from a 12-year old boy? Desperate, wouldn’t you say?” Lora scoffed.
“How do you know they were stolen, miss?” Carla demanded.
“Because those same guys broke into his house and took them from his bedroom, two nights ago. I should know, his mother gave me the license plate number, and it matches the van parked outside. Ms. Robinson, I’m afraid we’ll have to arrest you for collaborating with thieves.” Having logged all this in his notepad, Officer Peng disclosed a pair of handcuffs, slapped her into them, and reported, “Buying stolen goods to pay your bills isn’t legal, miss. I think your roommate may want a chat with you about this.”
Lora noticed that the boxes of comics were in this room as well, and told the police officer, “You take her in, I’ll handle this stuff.”
“Got it,” Mr. Peng nodded while escorting Carla out of the room.
Lora stretched both of her arms around the two boxes, then flattened them against the cardboard surface and began to pull.
“Mindy, can you give me a hand here?” She called.
The little girl had been exploring the apartment in the intervening time up to now, but jumped at her mother’s call, “Yeah? What do you want me to do?”
“Push these boxes from the other side while I pull from this side, okay?”
“Sure, mom!”
Two forces made hauling this heavy cargo much easier, and thankfully the elevator made bringing it to the ground floor more expedient than the stairs at her building. Once outside, just in time to see another cop shoving Carla into a police vehicle, Lora asked, “Do you know where these boxes were stolen from?”
Officer Peng flipped through his notepad to find a copy of the crime scene report at the Mann Residence, and showed it to her.
“That’s weird. Um, Christopher Mann...Lora Jett knows this boy.”
“Really?”
“She told me he has a friend named Darren, and they both go to middle school together. He said something about Chris having superpowers suddenly out of the blue. But what does that have to do with stolen comic books?”
“Hmm...Don’t quote me on this, but we saw something earlier today on one of our drones. Looked like a soldier with wings or something.”
“Weird, I don’t know about any heroes like that, even in the comics we’ve heard of.”
“Anyway, we’ll make sure Chris gets his comics back by the end of the day, ma’am,” Officer Peng bowed slightly.
Lora bowed back, but the conversation was interrupted by Mindy straining to push the boxes further, to which her mother called, “Okay, kiddo, you can stop!”
“Thanks, Mom,” Mindy sighed before drowsily falling backwards, collapsing flat like paper to the apartment steps, and reverting to normal shape.
“I’d better take my kid home, hehe,” Lora sheepishly stated while picking the girl up by one shoulder.
“Keep us posted if anything new happens on your end!”
“I will, have a nice day!”
-----
Later, at the police station, Carla Robinson was in interrogation, hooked up to a lie detector.
“Listen, I didn’t know those boxes of comics were stolen!”
The detector beeped to confirm that her claim was true.
“Who sold them to you on Craigslist? Do you remember that?” Officer Luanne Häke asked.
“I don’t know...well, I kept the receipt, but I don’t know where it went.”
“We searched your apartment...and found this under your bed,” Luanne answered while producing a piece of paper. Let’s see...posted by someone under nlbradley@zmail.com.’
Carla took a swig of water from a glass she was given, took a few deep breaths, then sighed, “The landlord came asking for the rent. Nick asked me to find something valuable to pay for the rent. Those boxes were only $40, total, he said, I could afford that, so that’s what I paid for. I don’t know that address!”
The detector pinged to dictate that the last phrase was false, while everything else was true.
“Interesting,” Luanne stated while studying the email address on the receipt once again. “N-L Bradley. Your roommate...AND our police chief is Nicholas Bradley. Which means...”
“What?”
“The person who sold you those boxes of comics to sell yourself...IS your roommate. Looks like you’ve been set up by Nick Bailey, miss.” She paused, then concluded, “Tell you what: Normally, I’d give you a ticket for consorting with theft, but since you’re already behind on rent and short on cash, and the theft’s been taken care of, I won’t. You’re just an unwitting pawn in a bigger scheme...so to speak. Other than that, you can go. But if I were you, I’d cut back on the alcohol. One of these days you might find yourself driving while drunk, and that can never end good, know what I mean?”
“Yeah, I get it. Thanks, miss.”
Luanne escorted Carla out of the interrogation room, for a ride back to her apartment.
-----
“Who is this man, Bradley?” Chief Bradley demanded while pausing a frame of footage collected from the drone. “He’s a new hero, isn’t he? Another nutbar here to steal our jobs!”
“I will give you credit for this, Chief,” Officer Vincent Wolfe stated, “This one’s a newbie. We can’t have new heroes around without making sure they won’t go nuts with their powers.”
Officer Bradley stated as he entered the office, “Pardon me for intruding, folks, but there’s nothing to worry about.”
“You sure?” Bruce Battiato asked.
“Mr. Bailey, I think you have some explaining to do,” Zeke accused the chief.
“What?”
“I’ve reviewed that little robbery, and it turns out that...YOU hired those robbers, Chief!”
All the other officers looked first at Zeke, then Bailey.
“You’re lying, Zeke!”
“Excuse me a minute,” Officer Bradley coyly ignored that while picking up a phone handset and dialing an extension.
“Commissioner Freeman?”
“Yes, Bradley?”
“You’ve heard the report on the latest crime?”
“I certainly did, and I think our so-called ‘chief’ has finally crossed the line. Have him come down to my office immediately.”
“Yes, sir, right away,” Zeke complied before hanging up. “Well, Bailey, it seems Commissioner Jordan Freeman wants to see you.”
Nick had always dreaded the commissioner hanging over him, under a distorted perception of who he really was. A boss nicer than Nick wanted to believe. But with a sentence about to passed, it seemed, he had no choice but to obey.
Down the hallway to an office slightly larger than the others, Nick entered to find the familiar face of the police commissioner, the middle man between the police and the mayor.
“Sit down,” he demanded, and so Nicholas did.
Jordan, a tall, lanky, middle-aged figure with white hair, took his seat and crossed his arms, a disappointed look on his face.
“I am at my last nerve with you, Nicholas. When I first appointed you as chief of this town’s police after chief Farley retired six years ago, I thought you’d be able to fit his shoes and properly handle such responsibility. But now I’m...I am absolutely stunned to find that the man I hoped would help us would turn to crime for his own purposes. You...you sicken me with this latest turn of events!” Jordon breathed deeply to calm himself, then asked, “So, what do you have to say for yourself, Bailey?”
“It’s those superheroes! For years, I’ve been trying to do the job you set for me, but those bastards always ruin it! Why does nobody listen to me?”
“Superheroes are different, but the mayor, and many other people tell me that they actually help us. Look at it this way: If you have a simple bank robbery, sure, we alone can clean that up, but there are just some crimes out there that the police can’t handle alone.”
“Like what?” Nick groaned.
“Like the times...Lydia Nirvana came to town. Magic – literally, M. A. G. I. C. – can’t compete with bullets. Or perhaps, oh, a psychotic villain trapping people in paintings. No normal person would be able to do that, let alone reverse it. That’s why these...well, powered beings are essential.”
“Bullshit!”
“Watch your mouth, before I get the District Attorney down here for that. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Right, Ahem. The point is, with metahumans cooperating with us, I think that allows us to defend this city from any threat, killing two birds with one stone. Take one of them away, before long something would go wrong. If you can’t face this, then hand in your badge!”
“Yes, sir, right away,” Nick muttered. But instead of his badge, he was reaching for his pistol. Jordan noticed this and pushed a button on his intercom to call a couple of guards. Nick had revealed the gun, already loaded, and proceeded to fire three shots at Jordan Freeman. Fortunately, the commissioner ducked under the desk, and the guards pinned him to the floor, one of them paging another on his radio.
“That tears it, Bailey!” Jordon screamed after getting his resolve back. “Boys, strip him of his uniform and send him to the detention center. I’ll call the D.A.”
“Got it,” one of them said.
Still pinned to the floor, they proceeded to detach Nick’s belt first and stick it in a plastic bin another called employee provided. Then, slipping him out of his uniform, the second guard slapped him in handcuffs.
Back on his feet, but still retained, Jordon eyed Nicholas’ now weak-looking bald head and tattooed body, and remarked, “I should have checked your psychological evaluation more thoroughly, Nicholas. Seems we were unaware until recently that our police was run by a PSYCHOPATH!” Then he turned to the guards and grunted, “Get him out of here, and make sure he never sees me again.”
“With pleasure,” the first guard reported with a hint of glee.
They escorted him out of the office, while Commissioner Freeman sat down with a sigh. Dialing an extension on his phone, he muttered to Zeke, “Bradley, do me a favor.”
“Yeah, Commissioner?”
“Mail a check I’ll be writing for the Mann family. They deserve reimbursement for that window, whether it’s insured or not.”
“Sure thing, I’ll be right over, sir.”
As he was filling out the $300 check, Commissioner Freeman turned to his computer and reviewed the drone footage of General Falcon. All he could say as he watched this video was, “Hmm...”
