I couldn’t sleep thinking about my family and everything that had just been revealed to me. It was also really late, or early rather, so I decided not to try calling home. I’d call tomorrow, first thing.
Instead I went for a walk.
The night air was bitter and harsh, the type that normally hurt to breath. I hadn’t noticed it earlier, but now it strained to cut into me, and I tried to let it. I was only wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt, but even with only that for insulation my body was sealed from the world. The virus protected me.
Apparently, this new body was not only insanely fast and strong, but bullet proof, had a weird shadow-seeing power, and was impervious to the elements. But it still couldn’t protect me from my own stupidity.
Next door the party at the club was still going strong. The bass was reverberating through the air. It called forth the memory of that night with Holly. I turned away from it.
I walked up the street, past the deli, and onward.
I had no purpose, no destination in mind. I just wanted to burn some energy so I could sleep.
As I walked, my stomach growled. If nothing else, this solved my problem of having no goal in mind. I tried to find a place to eat.
The first place I stumbled upon was a bar. If only Tom were here. I could really use a drink right now. Old enough to be recruited and seduced by my own government to fight in its shadow wars, but not old enough to order a beer and burger from this establishment. I soldiered on.
The next few blocks revealed nothing in my search for food, but I did have another thought. When Tom and I had first discovered what I was, we had talked about what it would be like to be a hero. To use these powers for good, as it were. And here I was, fresh off of a mission supposedly doing just that, only to find that the reason the mission had even happened in the first place, the reason the Rogues were here, was because of me.
I had been a catalyst to this problem. Without me, no bad guys. At least not in my life. Especially not for my family. Classic superhero story. That’s why they had secret identities, right? To protect those around them. To keep the people they cared about from being used against them. It seemed like it always backfired.
My problem was that apparently anyone who mattered in this little war already knew who I was. Could I just call a truce? Let both sides know I wasn’t interested in fighting?
I had been comfortable knowing that I might not even live this long. Or maybe I hadn’t. Maybe I was always afraid of death and had been putting on a brave face. I leapt at the first, real chance to live.
Maybe I wanted to be mad at Holly because she had lied to me. And she had—my anger was justified. But it cooled off in the night air, and I was left only feeling alone. I was an adult. I didn’t have to follow her that night at the club. I could have gone home with Tom, same as any other night out. A good time, but knowing I had missed out on something special.
No. I was mad because I fell for her. And she had been recruiting me. Was it still just that? She said no, but could I really trust her? I knew I needed to talk to her, but this was one conversation I wasn’t ready to have. Damn. Literally the plot to every romantic comedy ever, easily solved by two people sitting down and hashing things out like adults. But our situation was different. Of course, they all said that. For once I agreed.
I wished there had been no secret organization. No stupid government program running behind the scenes. Why couldn’t I just get all these abilities for free? Roam the beat like Spiderman or something. Should I have just listened to Tom in the first place and pursued a life of vigilantism on my own?
But then again, they had already known about me. That’s why I had been given the option of the virus at all.
Speaking of vigilantism, I had just spent the last thirty minutes wandering one of the seedier parts of the city, all alone, and not witnessed a single crime. How did the heroes in the comic books go about it? Seek out conflict? Or did strange circumstances just happen around them for plot convenience?
Just then, I heard a scream down a dark alley.
Only kidding. There was no scream.
Nothing happened to me. No one jumped out from the shadows. No magical life circumstances or plot driven deus ex machina made my choice for me. I had to decide what I wanted to do with my life all on my own.
I wandered on, thoughts of my current circumstances tumbling round and round in my head.
I stopped at a crosswalk and pulled the small flip phone out of my pocket. Whilst staring at the old-school number pad I realized that Tom’s number might have been the only cell number I could recall from memory before the virus had messed with my mind. It was very late, but Tom kept odd hours. I input the numbers, but my finger hovered over the call button. The light at the crosswalk turned green in front of me. I took it as a small sign and pressed call as I stepped forward.
“Hello?” A groggy voice greeted me after two short rings.
“Sorry to bother you so late…” I started
“Ryan?” I heard him clear his throat away from the phone and someone in the background ask who it was. “All good man, no worries. What’s up?”
Where to begin? Or, more realistically, what could I actually tell him?
“Things aren’t going as well here as I’d hoped. I just wanted someone to talk to about everything,” I admitted.
I had never been good at opening up with others, but Tom was basically the only close friend I had left.
“Sorry to hear that, man. Anything I can do to help?”
“No,” I sighed. “It’s just not what I expected it to be. I don’t think I can do this.”
He didn’t answer right away. I knew that I was disappointing him. His influence was a big reason I had even decided to try this life out in the first place. No, that was just an excuse; it had been my choice. He had been nothing but supportive. I had spent far too much time fantasizing about being some sort of superhero. The difference between us was that Tom was actually the type of person who could pull it off. I just felt lost.
“It should have been you. With the virus, I mean,” I spoke into the silence.
“No,” he let out a short, guttural laugh. “No, you can’t think like that. You gave it a shot. I’m sorry to hear that it’s not working out. I wish I could do something to help, but ultimately this is your decision. Your life. What are you going to do?”
“Go home, I guess,” I answered listlessly.
“And after?” He prodded.
“No idea,” I admitted. “Back to school I suppose. Try to figure out what I want to do with my life.”
Holly had said I could walk away once they had made sure my family was safe. I could go back to school with no one the wiser. I wasn’t sure that was true. Maybe Holly believed it to be true; she had seemed sincere. But obviously she wasn’t the one making these decisions. She could be just as deceived as me.
“Like I said, ultimately it’s up to you,” he answered after another short pause. “You know what I would do, but you’re not me. You have to do what you think is right.”
I wondered what that was. What was right? If I could tell my family everything would even they think I was wasting my “gift” if I did nothing with it? They would think I should be out there doing something important with what they would interpret as a miracle. But they didn’t know what that something would entail. And I wasn’t about to tell them.
“Thanks,” was all I could think to reply.
“Life is hard sometimes,” he answered with another, short laugh.
“Sorry to bother you so late,” I apologized again.
“Hey, don’t worry about it. I’m always here if you need to talk.”
“Thanks,” I said it again with much more conviction.
“Guess I’ll see you in two weeks.”
“Sounds good, see you then.” He hung up.
Basically, I was right back where I started. What was it that I wanted? What did I want to do with my life?
Through all of this, I had only learned one thing: I needed to grow up. Is this what it meant to be an adult? A hundred questions with no answers.
Finally, I stumbled on a diner that was open. I got a booth and looked over the menu. Burgers looked like the safest choice, so I ordered two. I was waiting for my meal to arrive when Logan dropped onto the bench across from me.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” I tried to reply nonchalantly.
Had he followed me? Were they always following me? Holly had mentioned they had kept tabs on me.
“I used to come here all the time with Michael after missions,” he offered as explanation. “It’s one of the few places open this late.” He gave me a half-hearted smile.
I responded with a nod. Even I could see through that flimsy excuse.
The waitress arrived with my food, and Logan ordered his own.
“Mind if I…” I gestured toward my food.
“No, no, go ahead.”
I dug in. I was starving.
He watched for a moment before speaking again.
“I know how you feel. I was recruited by James almost a year ago. Before that, I had been enlisted in the Army. Back when I saw the world as black and white. I had been shipped off to Afghanistan to fight the terrorists. They were bad guys, and we were good guys. It was pretty simple, right?” He shook his head.
“We had these locals, guys that would help us out. Sometimes they’d give us intel, but mostly they just weren’t the ones shooting at us. I was the coms guy, so I had an interpreter I worked with. He was a real good kid. Trying to make a new life for himself. Thing is, these locals sometimes had a hankering for little boys. And this kid I was working with was just the right age one of the elders of the village liked ‘em at.
“So this guy promises my CO he’ll deliver a whole contingent of Taliban rebels. Their local training and recruitment grounds. Some hidden place up in the mountains nearby.”
He paused for a moment as the waitress brought out another water and set it in front of him. Once she was gone, I nodded for Logan to continue.
“Man, these mountains. You could hide a goat from God up there. We’d been running patrols with air support for weeks. The best we could do to pinpoint their location was wait to get shot at and see which side we were bleeding from.
“So of course my CO jumped at the opportunity. I tried to fight for the kid, to argue with my boss. But I was just a dumb enlisted grunt, and he was the officer. So they handed over my interpreter.”
“What happened?” I almost didn’t want to hear the answer.
He looked away, eyes glazed.
“We found his body a week later,” he stated flatly.
He shook his head in disgust.
The waitress brought his food. He looked down at it as if surprised to see it there.
“You want this? I’m not hungry.”
I nodded, and he slid the plate across to me.
“So, they got the intel. We hit them hard, at night. They had no night vision, no real high tech at all out there. At night, we were like motherfucking reapers reborn. Ghosts in the night. They couldn’t do shit if we ran real ops, in force, at night.
“But the place was deserted. My CO sold out for nothing. And that poor kid.” He rubbed his left arm subconsciously.
“It was early morning when we finally gave up. On our way back to the village, we got ambushed. Lost half a dozen guys. I lost my arm to an IED.” He took a deep breath.
I stared pointedly at both his arms.
“Pretty crazy, this virus. Eh?” Logan shook his head.
“Turns out that village leader had been playing both sides. But guess what? He’s still out there, doing it today. Because he’s too valuable an asset to lose. And if we went after everyone who betrayed us, well there’d be no one left.
“The real kicker? The Taliban were also the ones responsible for keeping scum like him in line, back when they had control. People like that were strung up by their balls.”
Logan looked up at me, though I wasn’t sure it was me he was seeing.
“World looked all sorts of grey after that day.” He sat back for a moment.
I didn’t know what to say, so I continued eating, well on my way through his plate by now.
“They attacked us. Right?” He leaned forward. “That’s what we know. So we went there and took them out. Problem is, that corner of the world? It’s not like here. You can’t create a power vacuum like that. All sorts of evil crept out of the woodwork to take control of whatever piece they could. Were we the good guys? Well not to them, that’s for sure. But we were getting revenge for what they did to us. That’s all that mattered.
“I think we tried to convince ourselves it was about more than that. Bringing democracy and freedom to a corner of the world that appeared to have little of either. But in reality, it was as simple as killing the guys who decided to fly planes into our buildings.
“But we didn’t go after the ones who were really responsible. We went after their grunts with our grunts. All the while, the guys at the top lived like kings on either side.”
“Isn’t that what we’re doing, fighting these Rogues?” I asked.
Logan shook his head.
“I spent years in rehabilitation, trying to learn to live with one less limb; with the loss of an unwavering belief in everything I had been. Those were some dark days.
“Then James approached me. He told me they could fix me. They could make me better, stronger. But more importantly, I would be part of an elite team. One that didn’t fight the wars on the ground. We would work behind the scenes. We would hold people accountable for their decisions. We were the nukes of the new age. I jumped at the chance.
“I know you aren’t a soldier. You’re a kid. What? A year out of high school?”
I held up two fingers.
“I used to be like you. Trust me, what we are doing right now might not make sense to you, but it will. I would trust James with my life. He’s one of the good guys. And what we’re doing? It matters. It’s all about taking care of the little guy. About holding the people in charge responsible for the mess they created.
“Sorry for interrupting. Don’t worry, no matter what you decide, we’ll take care of your family.” He stood up abruptly, paused to take some cash out of his wallet, and dropped it on the table.
“Dinner’s on me.” And with that he left.
I finished my meal, checked the cash was enough, and walked out.