Festive Gingerly, while discovering pleasure in the friction of her pruned fingertips grazing the silk of her bathrobe, Merle ran her hands up her biceps and let them rest idly on her shoulders. She placed her chin atop her hand there, and – in front of the wall-sized-window that overlooked the electronic embers of streetlights and traffic and whatever else cast the hazy orange glow above the light-polluted city – Merle watched the world. She never understood the beauty in cities, in seeing skyscrapers poke through the robust heaps of clouds, or the dazzling blurs of headlights interlacing each and every highway. The sounds even, the white noise circulating in and around each concrete declaration that humanity could – and forever would – do more and more… none of it was pleasant. None of it was ideal. She was well past her prime and, even with bio-medical modifications ready to readjust her God-given rights to not have kids after her child-bearing days were over, Merle never wanted kids. Seeing the city, the grit and the grime of stone and mortar and glass, the nonstop hum of a few millions’ livelihood, Merle was thankful she hadn’t raised kids in the throes of its relentlessness. She alone could not stand it. Having to watch her own free-thinking responsibilities grow in it, be molded by it, and face the horrors of it would cause Merle to wither from stress in a heartbeat.
That reasoning alone was most likely why she never reproduced, she decided as she turned away from the window. To many, Merle was depicted as a strong, capable warrior who stood by a team and supported it when it needed her the most. To herself, she was the young idiot who sought glory in heroism and purpose in vigilantism. To be like the idols of her youth, to live a lavish lifestyle of saving the day and being romanced by her life’s calling. Simply put: Merle had been a comic book nerd who was given the opportunity of her naïve lifetime. That fantasizing idiot grew into a middle-aged woman who had no identity outside of it, no concept of how to live like a normal human would. She hadn’t even been the best at being Zenith. In her head she knew of a few other candidates who could have taken up that mantle and done a hell of a better job at it. She had taken things too seriously, dedicated too much of herself to it.
She always had been the nervous one, the worst-case-scenario worrier. But when everything she had ever known and loved in life fell through the cracks in her hands like sand, there was none of that glory in heroism, none of that romanticism. It was just her own personal world shattered before her, the death of her family on her, the disappointment of her support system spray-painting the target on her back it would continue to use. All of it was gone.
She had no idea how to exist without it.
Careful not to ruffle the fluffy, gold-and-red stitched quilt draped neatly over the king-sized bed, Merle sat down. She ran her hand along the quit, thought about whether the hotel had it handmade or if every single room had a carbon copy of this same IKEA-brand rip-off. She wasn’t a fan of hotels; she much preferred her house in the countryside, the mass accumulation of all the money that was forced upon her paying for it. The rest of that money had gone to her nephews and sister, some of it sent to various organizations as donations. Mostly to animal shelters. While rescuing people was her passion, animals in need of a loving home was her vice.
To think, if she kept that money, she could have bought a nice condo in the city, have been spared the torture of sleeping in a bed so many others had slept in before her. She missed home, but she knew better than to try and fly home at night. Maria successfully convinced Merle into spending the night in the five-star hotel, in the same room Madonna once occupied, according to the chipper bellhop that was more than thrilled to carry Zenith’s one and only bag to her room. She had no words for him. People-pleasing was not her forte, especially not when the ginger-haired boy recited Zenith’s entire biography for her. It had been an unsettling experience, to say the least.
In the morning, she would leave. Not to head home – not just yet. There was a little inkling nagging away at her that suggested she wouldn’t step foot on the dirt pathway leading up to her red front door for a long while.
Merle glanced over at the mahogany nightstand, at her phone that held the list. A list of coordinates, names, descriptions, contact information, everything Merle needed. Maria had it sent to her in a matter of minutes when requested.
’Oh, Maria…’ Merle thought. It never occurred to Merle that, of all people, Maria Diaz would be the first person ready to save the world again – before even Merle herself stepped up to the plate. That Maria would have all of it wrapped up in a neat digital bow for Merle when they met at the coffee shop –
”But… what have you been doing this whole time?”
The mug clinked loudly on the tabletop as it was set down. With its rough landing, a solo bead of walnut-toned liquid leapt out and hugged the lip of the mug before barreling down its smooth, ceramic side. It slowly wound around the widened base of the off-white mug, preparing itself to merge with the halo-shaped puddle of cold coffee outlining the cup’s bottom, but it didn’t.
It slipped off, remained floating a solid inch off the table, and traced invisible tracks laid down for it as it swirled around in a figure eight. It expanded and contracted as if it had become something living, something breathing.
And with a slight flick of the eyes transfixed entirely on the bead, it burst outward into several miniature copies, each little drop arching upward and down in a synchronized performance. One-by-one, they plummeted back into the heart of the mug, leaving slight ripples in their wake as they melded back into from where they came.
“Merle?” Maria repeated with more force behind her words. Merle had looked up from the mug, saw that permanently-exhausted face of Maria staring intently back at her, waiting for human contact. “This whole time, you’ve just been… what, vegetating? In this idea that you’re, like, you’re a failure?”
“Not a failure,” Merle monotonously answered. She shrunk into herself, brought her shoulders up to her ears as her hands embraced the mug and felt the warmth inside. In her chest she was a mess of live wires flailing around – of heat radiating outward, making her nerves hyperactive, her paranoia all too controlling. On the outside, her face was a blank slate void of any sort of emotion. Over the years, when things dabbled in the all-too-intrusive personal affairs of her life, it had gotten easier to pretend an inner-apocalypse wasn’t tearing her apart on the inside. “I’ve been living,” she added.
“Alone. Purposely alone. Look, I’m glad you’re on-board for this – really, I really am. I don’t know else I would’a turned to, but… you know, we were friends. I’m gonna be concerned when I hear you’ve been isolating yourself, beating yourself up for two years –”
“I’m okay,” Merle solemnly said. She sat back in the chair and looked outside, at the rain that pitter-pattered down on the cobblestone street wedged between shops. “I’m fine.”
Upbeat polka music interlaced with a trill-voiced French woman attempting rapping wafted from the speakers bolted to the high corners of the little café. The café with the potted plants pushed against every corner of the room, leaves branching out to the long windows, the scent of pine commixing with coffee forever ingrained into the wood-panelled walls. The bell above the door chimed every time the unruly wind tried to push it open. The weather continued its angst-filled course of miserable weather – skies absent of color, the concrete dampened with the days’ early rain shower.
“You’re not, Merle,” Maria whispered so daringly gently. Her brow furrowed inward, the corners of her lips sinking into a frown. “And you haven’t been for a while. Merle, please… we spent so long saving the world that everyone assumes we don’t need saving ourselves but, no. No, we do. We break, too, Merle, and that’s okay. It’s completely okay when we do. But we can’t always be the ones to put ourselves back together… okay?”
A gangly barista in a black apron swished by, the dishware in the black bin supported on his shoulder rattling fervently. He flashed an appropriate smile to the awkward young couple at the table across, and a disgruntled one to his co-worker leaning on her propped-up elbows behind the counter. As he passed by Merle, she spotted those large eyes of his slide to the side, eyeing Merle in what he thought was subtlety. His eyebrows lifted, judgingly, amused in a condescending fashion.
“Oh, my god…” the barista mumbled under his breath to his co-worker, who rolled her eyes at Merle.
The telltale flash and shutter-clicking sound of a phone snapping a picture ripped Merle’s attention away. Wide-eyed, she looked at the bald man a few tables down who grinned and snorted when Merle locked her eyes with his.
The barista behind the counter laughed a course, haughty laugh at some joke that had been whispered in her ear.
A pack of arrogant teenage boys knocked on the window from the outside, pointing at Merle and Maria and taking pictures excitedly.
Though she had been breathing – rapid, raggedy inhales that didn’t take in enough air – Merle felt breathless, felt tight in her chest. She bit at the insides of her cheeks, at her tongue. Her body had become a conduit for over-produced electricity, and she was unable to sit still comfortably, unable to keep her eyes from darting around at every sound and action. She needed to run, to hide, in a dark little corner and let it all blow over. What, specifically, she didn’t know. But she needed out. She felt on fire.
“I, uh, I n-need to – I’m just, I’m just gonna go,” Merle quickly stuttered.
She stood too fast and her hip caught the corner of the table, bumping it forward and tipping it entirely. Its metal feet scraped off the floor loudly before the loud boom of it crashing onto the floor came; and the cups of coffee fell forward and spilled onto the floor – onto Maria, who yelped in surprise. The bald man burst into raucous laughter; the barista behind the counter tried to stifle hers while her co-worker loudly sighed and barked for a mop.
There was fervent knocking on the window, murmurs erupting from people Merle hadn’t noticed before. More phones and cameras were directed at her. The world was spinning too quickly and she was unable to focus on one thing. She thought she had been moving but was frozen as her face became bright, hot red.
“Merle, it’s okay,” Maria may have said. Merle saw her friends’ lips move, but the words didn’t make their way to Merle’s ears with clarity. Merle had been occupied with shakily looking around at everyone staring back at her, watching her like an animal in a zoo. For some reason she couldn’t quite explain, she wanted to apologize profusely to each of them.
Maria stood. Merle backed away, bumped into the chair behind her, and sent a glass container of sugar shattering onto the floor when she whipped around to stabilize the chair. More laughter erupted.
“She’s, like, telekinetic. Couldn’t she have caught it?” one half of the young couple whispered.
“Really,” the other chimed in.
“Let’s go,” Maria said as she took Merle’s arm and directed her to the door. But somehow, before Merle could process any of the millions of frantic thoughts rushing through her head, she had bolted out of the door into the crisp downpour of midday’s rain and was airborne.
She was a solid mile away from the coffee shop before she landed on the roof of a hospital. There, she collapsed onto her knees, wrapped her arms around herself and hugged her quaking, rain-soaked body tightly, and cried.
The first shimmers of a salmon-tinged sunrise had begun poking through the darkened skyline before Merle even thought to close her eyes. She spent the gruelingly long duration of that lonely night in a bustling city mulling over every last thought she couldn’t digest. Most of it spiraled around the idea that their most terrifying, most resilient threat to date had set course to return to their unprepared planet once more. Merle couldn’t sleep knowing all of this, knowing they would soon have to fight them again. They would need a collective force stronger than the one Merle fought with during WW3. If there was absolute accuracy in Maria’s suggestion that the returning alien flotilla was a hundredfold larger, then Merle knew they would crumble beneath the aliens’ brute strength unless they had the entire planet conjoined into one battle-ready army.
The likelihood of that happening smoothly and in-time was another endless tangent Merle wracked her brain over.
With a sigh she blew out and let rumble between her pursed lips, Merle tossed over onto her side, facing the door of the hotel room. She would be heading to London in a few hours, having decided upon the first two former members she would try and persuade into re-joining a failed cause. The list Maria provided her had a solid dozen names – most of whom Merle knew – that would aid them, at least in the initial stages. What “the initial stages” implied, Merle had not yet deciphered for herself. The building blocks to creating a stronger, more unified Seventh Division? Finding charismatic, influential members that could make this Division’s iteration a popular one after its social suicide? What she would even say to them, what she would suggest they do once they all grouped together and were ready to work, was still in its very early formative stages.
Maria only turned to Merle because Merle was the only one Maria knew would not fully turn her back. Merle considered maybe she was the only one who hadn’t turned her back yet; maybe she had been Maria’s last resort go-to gal when everyone else ignored her pleas for help. When Merle questioned Maria as to why the government itself was doing nothing about it, Merle received a wishy-washy answer. She suspected Maria was no longer with whichever organization stole her from the Divisions originally. The more Merle asked about it, the more agitated Maria had gotten. Maria kept insisting it wasn't important, only that they needed to be the ones to do something. Merle left that can of worms unopened but knew something so suspiciously vague needed to be explored at a later date.
Whatever Maria's reasoning for turning to Merle was, it was not because Merle was the sure-fire best suited leader to single-handedly direct them to victory. She knew that. She had no qualms in admitting it. The runs where she had been at the helm of former Divisions were not nearly as serious as potential global damnation. She had co-led those ones; she had smaller tasks, controlled environments, and reliability of an actually formed team who respected her to fall back on. At the moment, she didn’t even know if she would have that.
She didn’t even know if she wanted to be the one to have that.
It was encoded into her DNA, seared into each little moral fiber of her consciousness. She knew, when things such as this arose, she would always want to battle it. It was who she was. Regardless of the scarred hermit she become over the past two years, she still felt her whole body pulse with an eagerness to get a move on and quell the next threat. But shouldering the idea of being the designated ringleader of a shunned ex-vigilante group did not sit well with her. She wanted to run from responsibility of it, to hide from having to face being the strong one. She knew she couldn’t be the big boss yet again. She would flop, disappoint both her team and everyone else relying on them. Yet some unbroken fraction of her couldn’t fathom watching another man or woman run the very reason for her existence into the ground. Not while she stood idly off on the sidelines and let it happen.
Truthfully, Merle didn’t know what she wanted.
Yawning, feeling the sore ache in her shoulder blades as she stretched, Merle slipped out from beneath the covers. She touched her bare feet down on the warm, hardwood floor and hung her head. She was exhausted, physically and emotionally. A craving for coffee temporarily stole her focus as she stared at the little kitchenette across the room. It felt idiotic to be thinking about coffee at a time when doom was lurking at the outer rim of their solar system.
‘But we’ll try to not,’ Merle told herself. ‘We cannot think about this. Not now. Good Lord, not now. Come on. We’ve got to keep it together.’ It didn’t work, trying to sweep her mind away to greener pastures. As she went about her quick morning, she thought of Desecration, of her days in China fighting an inhuman army; she remembered The Psychogenerative Law riots of ’91, and the time a bullet grazed her ear in a bank heist. She had fought other battles. She was a war veteran, the last living member of The First Division; she was a hero to many, an inspiration to millions.
And yet the instinct to return to her countryside home and lock herself away until everything ended. Even the compulsion to fight couldn’t drown that urge.
‘We can survive this,’ Merle lied to herself. ‘We can. We can do this. We have done worse. This is no different. You got this, Merle. You got this.’
“Pardon me,” Merle mumbled. The tall, thin man with the wispy moustache bowed his head respectfully, one hand tucked behind his back and the other supporting the empty silver tray. He took a step backward, letting Merle slip by him and scoot around the circular table. She tried to glide with a graceful gait she had never quite mastered, but both her natural awkwardness in her own skin and wearing a form-fitting black dress one size too small made it impossible to walk like she knew how to.
Maybe once upon a time she may have been successfully grafted into the socialite scene despite how little she had liked it. Posing this way and that, knowing the proper reactions to camera flashes, hearing her name shouted out like she were a superstar at a concert, they were things her flesh had since shed with a great sigh of relief.
Nearing the back wall of the small convention center, Merle slowed to a stop. She turned around, looking out at the chattering collection of formally-dressed PsyGen’s – some of the most important and influential in all of Europe – and felt a slight inkling of being entirely out-of-place. That discomfort of not belonging crawled across her skin with a warmth she didn’t enjoy. If it wasn’t for the purple-feathered masquerade mask and blonde wig styled in the likes of a mid-1990’s Lady Lust, Merle would have felt nothing but hesitation and doubt attending the 30th Annual Commemoration of Heroes. But knowing her identity was kept under wraps somehow gave her an added boost of confidence being there. No one knew it was Zenith under the mask. So long as she didn’t blow her cover in the most dismal of fashions, she was safe. And she felt it.
“Enlighten me again why we’re here,” the voice of Maria crackled in Merle’s ear. It was an incredulously small earpiece Merle wore, the same kind Vorian von Traupitz once manufactured for The Divisions. Wearing it again brought about mixed feelings of nostalgia and regret.
“To view the clientele,” Merle mumbled in what came out as a poor Cockney accent.
There was silence on the other end. Merle subtly prodded the earpiece with her index finger, thinking it had died on her, when there was a sudden cough in her ear.
“That voice, um… the hell was that?” Maria slowly asked.
“I’m, um, well, I-I need to blend in,” Merle stammered.
“Yeah, but maybe just don’t… do any of that…” Maria answered. “But, so, why the Mackey’s first? Sure, they were hot shit and all, but –”
“I don’t know if your mother would appreciate you speaking like that,” Merle teasingly chastised her friend. With a loose hand she reached out and daintily snatched a glass of champagne from off the tray of a passing server.
“Merle Joyce Moreau, was that a joke you just made? You’re capable of that?” Maria gasped. Merle couldn’t help but crack a smile. It felt like old times.
“I try to seem human every now and then, yes,” Merle replied. She lifted her chin, pointed her nose to the ceiling, and spun around as a portly man attempted approaching Merle. In an accent Merle was certain sounded favourably New Zealand-like, she continued speaking. “To answer your question: they are the only two from the list that have not been former guests of any party and did not attend our aforementioned escapade –”
“Our what now?” Maria interrupted.
“Adventbrook,” Merle whispered from the corner of her mouth. There was an audible, “ahh,” on Maria’s end as she understood. As intelligent as Maria Diaz was, Merle couldn’t deny it that her all-knowing accomplice had not always been the quickest to pick up on purposely elusive explanations.
Or basic common sense.
Clearing her throat and nimbly sashaying further away from the small cluster of retired PsyGen’s that had formed near Merle, she added, “It may prove easier convincing these two to attend our next ball first. And with more numbers behind us –”
“It’ll be easier to get other people to join,” Maria concluded. Merle could almost picture the smug look Maria had of finishing Merle’s sentence for her. Merle would let her have this one, she decided.
What Merle didn’t add to her reasoning was the heavier truth. Alexander and Shirleen Mackey were the only two that Merle could trust that she had not disappointed. Facing the two siblings would take less courage and owning-up for her faults than it would to confront someone who had survived Adventbrook. All of those people Merle had ignored for the past two years. Alex and Shirley would be an easy, guiltless start.
There was an exclamatory shout in the earpiece, loud enough that Merle was certain the identical twin duo Flint and Tinder heard it from twenty or-so feet away.
“And let the records show the Mackey sisters have just showed up, courtesy of front lobby camera A,” Maria chirped. “And might I say, Mr. Mackey, you are one Tower I’d like to explore.”
“I’m heading to position,” Merle briskly said, pretending she hadn’t heard the last bit of Maria’s commentary. She tipped the lip of the champagne glass to her mouth and downed it as classily as she could in one big swig. “I’ll talk to you when I’m there.”
“What, I can’t talk ‘til you get there?”
“I’d prefer it that way, yes,” Merle coolly retorted.
It had gotten chillier than Merle anticipated, quicker than she could have predicted. She kept her jaw clenched to keep her teeth from chattering, and even as she hopped from foot-to-foot and paced the length of the rooftop, she felt the cold in her fingertips and nose.
Merle had missed the underprepared wardrobe choice mistakes for late night stakeouts. These were all minor details she had forgotten about, the little things about the job that she kept stumbling upon and smirking like an idiot over.
Over the rumble of cars and a bulky plane flying overhead, Merle swore she heard noises in the stairwell – the ricocheting footfalls of heavy feet thudding off the metal steps. Around the corner of the door leading indoors she leaned against the wall, mentally prepping herself for the encounter. She had discarded the wig and mask, feeling no need to conceal her identity in the pitch blackness of night. It would only make for an unnecessary theatrical reveal, and Merle was not the type of superhero to revel in the melodrama of the business.
Taking a sharp breath inward, Merle held the air inside her lungs, desperately straining to hear any noises. She felt her heartbeat pulsing in her head, her ears. She was nervous, and she didn’t know why. The stairwell had fallen silent. Had she been hearing things all along?
‘I should contact Maria and tell –‘
A loud bang of the metal door slamming against the brick wall rang out through the still night. Startled, Merle jumped and retreated further away from the wide open space of the rooftop, slinking along the wall. Suddenly she felt ridiculous for not keeping a readied weapon at-hand. It was not that either Shirley or Alex would pose as a threat per se, but in a convention full of PsyGen’s whose moral status would always be unclear and the possibility of anti-psychogenerative terrorists lurking in the shadows like Merle currently did, whoever burst through the door to the rooftop very well may have been Merle’s next victim.
It brought Merle great disappointment in herself for not thinking the entire scenario through better.
Someone spoke – a male, and Merle couldn’t remember if that was what Alex’s voice had sounded like or not. It had been too long since she last spoke with the young man to recall whether it was deeper than that or not.
A female answered him. Something in that voice rang a bell. Taking her chances, Merle moved forward, careful to walk silently and hold her breath in. She neared the edge of the wall and dared peak around it just enough to make out the forms of a large, thick-bodied man and a smaller woman.
‘This is it. This is them,’ Merle thought to herself. Nervous, still, with a dash of spontaneous self-consciousness added in for spice. She counted down to three several times in her head before taking the first – audibly crunchy on the gravel – step out from behind the wall.
Words didn’t come to her, not immediately. Every last pore in her brain seeped out blanks and uselessness; her tongue felt like it had become a dried, shrivelled worm in her mouth. As the silence dragged on for too long for comfort, Merle parted her lips, let out an airy attempt at speaking, and tried again.
“Alex, Shirley,” Merle greeted the two with a nod. “It’s me. Merle. And I need you.”
That reasoning alone was most likely why she never reproduced, she decided as she turned away from the window. To many, Merle was depicted as a strong, capable warrior who stood by a team and supported it when it needed her the most. To herself, she was the young idiot who sought glory in heroism and purpose in vigilantism. To be like the idols of her youth, to live a lavish lifestyle of saving the day and being romanced by her life’s calling. Simply put: Merle had been a comic book nerd who was given the opportunity of her naïve lifetime. That fantasizing idiot grew into a middle-aged woman who had no identity outside of it, no concept of how to live like a normal human would. She hadn’t even been the best at being Zenith. In her head she knew of a few other candidates who could have taken up that mantle and done a hell of a better job at it. She had taken things too seriously, dedicated too much of herself to it.
She always had been the nervous one, the worst-case-scenario worrier. But when everything she had ever known and loved in life fell through the cracks in her hands like sand, there was none of that glory in heroism, none of that romanticism. It was just her own personal world shattered before her, the death of her family on her, the disappointment of her support system spray-painting the target on her back it would continue to use. All of it was gone.
She had no idea how to exist without it.
Careful not to ruffle the fluffy, gold-and-red stitched quilt draped neatly over the king-sized bed, Merle sat down. She ran her hand along the quit, thought about whether the hotel had it handmade or if every single room had a carbon copy of this same IKEA-brand rip-off. She wasn’t a fan of hotels; she much preferred her house in the countryside, the mass accumulation of all the money that was forced upon her paying for it. The rest of that money had gone to her nephews and sister, some of it sent to various organizations as donations. Mostly to animal shelters. While rescuing people was her passion, animals in need of a loving home was her vice.
To think, if she kept that money, she could have bought a nice condo in the city, have been spared the torture of sleeping in a bed so many others had slept in before her. She missed home, but she knew better than to try and fly home at night. Maria successfully convinced Merle into spending the night in the five-star hotel, in the same room Madonna once occupied, according to the chipper bellhop that was more than thrilled to carry Zenith’s one and only bag to her room. She had no words for him. People-pleasing was not her forte, especially not when the ginger-haired boy recited Zenith’s entire biography for her. It had been an unsettling experience, to say the least.
In the morning, she would leave. Not to head home – not just yet. There was a little inkling nagging away at her that suggested she wouldn’t step foot on the dirt pathway leading up to her red front door for a long while.
Merle glanced over at the mahogany nightstand, at her phone that held the list. A list of coordinates, names, descriptions, contact information, everything Merle needed. Maria had it sent to her in a matter of minutes when requested.
’Oh, Maria…’ Merle thought. It never occurred to Merle that, of all people, Maria Diaz would be the first person ready to save the world again – before even Merle herself stepped up to the plate. That Maria would have all of it wrapped up in a neat digital bow for Merle when they met at the coffee shop –
”But… what have you been doing this whole time?”
The mug clinked loudly on the tabletop as it was set down. With its rough landing, a solo bead of walnut-toned liquid leapt out and hugged the lip of the mug before barreling down its smooth, ceramic side. It slowly wound around the widened base of the off-white mug, preparing itself to merge with the halo-shaped puddle of cold coffee outlining the cup’s bottom, but it didn’t.
It slipped off, remained floating a solid inch off the table, and traced invisible tracks laid down for it as it swirled around in a figure eight. It expanded and contracted as if it had become something living, something breathing.
And with a slight flick of the eyes transfixed entirely on the bead, it burst outward into several miniature copies, each little drop arching upward and down in a synchronized performance. One-by-one, they plummeted back into the heart of the mug, leaving slight ripples in their wake as they melded back into from where they came.
“Merle?” Maria repeated with more force behind her words. Merle had looked up from the mug, saw that permanently-exhausted face of Maria staring intently back at her, waiting for human contact. “This whole time, you’ve just been… what, vegetating? In this idea that you’re, like, you’re a failure?”
“Not a failure,” Merle monotonously answered. She shrunk into herself, brought her shoulders up to her ears as her hands embraced the mug and felt the warmth inside. In her chest she was a mess of live wires flailing around – of heat radiating outward, making her nerves hyperactive, her paranoia all too controlling. On the outside, her face was a blank slate void of any sort of emotion. Over the years, when things dabbled in the all-too-intrusive personal affairs of her life, it had gotten easier to pretend an inner-apocalypse wasn’t tearing her apart on the inside. “I’ve been living,” she added.
“Alone. Purposely alone. Look, I’m glad you’re on-board for this – really, I really am. I don’t know else I would’a turned to, but… you know, we were friends. I’m gonna be concerned when I hear you’ve been isolating yourself, beating yourself up for two years –”
“I’m okay,” Merle solemnly said. She sat back in the chair and looked outside, at the rain that pitter-pattered down on the cobblestone street wedged between shops. “I’m fine.”
Upbeat polka music interlaced with a trill-voiced French woman attempting rapping wafted from the speakers bolted to the high corners of the little café. The café with the potted plants pushed against every corner of the room, leaves branching out to the long windows, the scent of pine commixing with coffee forever ingrained into the wood-panelled walls. The bell above the door chimed every time the unruly wind tried to push it open. The weather continued its angst-filled course of miserable weather – skies absent of color, the concrete dampened with the days’ early rain shower.
“You’re not, Merle,” Maria whispered so daringly gently. Her brow furrowed inward, the corners of her lips sinking into a frown. “And you haven’t been for a while. Merle, please… we spent so long saving the world that everyone assumes we don’t need saving ourselves but, no. No, we do. We break, too, Merle, and that’s okay. It’s completely okay when we do. But we can’t always be the ones to put ourselves back together… okay?”
A gangly barista in a black apron swished by, the dishware in the black bin supported on his shoulder rattling fervently. He flashed an appropriate smile to the awkward young couple at the table across, and a disgruntled one to his co-worker leaning on her propped-up elbows behind the counter. As he passed by Merle, she spotted those large eyes of his slide to the side, eyeing Merle in what he thought was subtlety. His eyebrows lifted, judgingly, amused in a condescending fashion.
“Oh, my god…” the barista mumbled under his breath to his co-worker, who rolled her eyes at Merle.
The telltale flash and shutter-clicking sound of a phone snapping a picture ripped Merle’s attention away. Wide-eyed, she looked at the bald man a few tables down who grinned and snorted when Merle locked her eyes with his.
The barista behind the counter laughed a course, haughty laugh at some joke that had been whispered in her ear.
A pack of arrogant teenage boys knocked on the window from the outside, pointing at Merle and Maria and taking pictures excitedly.
Though she had been breathing – rapid, raggedy inhales that didn’t take in enough air – Merle felt breathless, felt tight in her chest. She bit at the insides of her cheeks, at her tongue. Her body had become a conduit for over-produced electricity, and she was unable to sit still comfortably, unable to keep her eyes from darting around at every sound and action. She needed to run, to hide, in a dark little corner and let it all blow over. What, specifically, she didn’t know. But she needed out. She felt on fire.
“I, uh, I n-need to – I’m just, I’m just gonna go,” Merle quickly stuttered.
She stood too fast and her hip caught the corner of the table, bumping it forward and tipping it entirely. Its metal feet scraped off the floor loudly before the loud boom of it crashing onto the floor came; and the cups of coffee fell forward and spilled onto the floor – onto Maria, who yelped in surprise. The bald man burst into raucous laughter; the barista behind the counter tried to stifle hers while her co-worker loudly sighed and barked for a mop.
There was fervent knocking on the window, murmurs erupting from people Merle hadn’t noticed before. More phones and cameras were directed at her. The world was spinning too quickly and she was unable to focus on one thing. She thought she had been moving but was frozen as her face became bright, hot red.
“Merle, it’s okay,” Maria may have said. Merle saw her friends’ lips move, but the words didn’t make their way to Merle’s ears with clarity. Merle had been occupied with shakily looking around at everyone staring back at her, watching her like an animal in a zoo. For some reason she couldn’t quite explain, she wanted to apologize profusely to each of them.
Maria stood. Merle backed away, bumped into the chair behind her, and sent a glass container of sugar shattering onto the floor when she whipped around to stabilize the chair. More laughter erupted.
“She’s, like, telekinetic. Couldn’t she have caught it?” one half of the young couple whispered.
“Really,” the other chimed in.
“Let’s go,” Maria said as she took Merle’s arm and directed her to the door. But somehow, before Merle could process any of the millions of frantic thoughts rushing through her head, she had bolted out of the door into the crisp downpour of midday’s rain and was airborne.
She was a solid mile away from the coffee shop before she landed on the roof of a hospital. There, she collapsed onto her knees, wrapped her arms around herself and hugged her quaking, rain-soaked body tightly, and cried.
~*~
The first shimmers of a salmon-tinged sunrise had begun poking through the darkened skyline before Merle even thought to close her eyes. She spent the gruelingly long duration of that lonely night in a bustling city mulling over every last thought she couldn’t digest. Most of it spiraled around the idea that their most terrifying, most resilient threat to date had set course to return to their unprepared planet once more. Merle couldn’t sleep knowing all of this, knowing they would soon have to fight them again. They would need a collective force stronger than the one Merle fought with during WW3. If there was absolute accuracy in Maria’s suggestion that the returning alien flotilla was a hundredfold larger, then Merle knew they would crumble beneath the aliens’ brute strength unless they had the entire planet conjoined into one battle-ready army.
The likelihood of that happening smoothly and in-time was another endless tangent Merle wracked her brain over.
With a sigh she blew out and let rumble between her pursed lips, Merle tossed over onto her side, facing the door of the hotel room. She would be heading to London in a few hours, having decided upon the first two former members she would try and persuade into re-joining a failed cause. The list Maria provided her had a solid dozen names – most of whom Merle knew – that would aid them, at least in the initial stages. What “the initial stages” implied, Merle had not yet deciphered for herself. The building blocks to creating a stronger, more unified Seventh Division? Finding charismatic, influential members that could make this Division’s iteration a popular one after its social suicide? What she would even say to them, what she would suggest they do once they all grouped together and were ready to work, was still in its very early formative stages.
Maria only turned to Merle because Merle was the only one Maria knew would not fully turn her back. Merle considered maybe she was the only one who hadn’t turned her back yet; maybe she had been Maria’s last resort go-to gal when everyone else ignored her pleas for help. When Merle questioned Maria as to why the government itself was doing nothing about it, Merle received a wishy-washy answer. She suspected Maria was no longer with whichever organization stole her from the Divisions originally. The more Merle asked about it, the more agitated Maria had gotten. Maria kept insisting it wasn't important, only that they needed to be the ones to do something. Merle left that can of worms unopened but knew something so suspiciously vague needed to be explored at a later date.
Whatever Maria's reasoning for turning to Merle was, it was not because Merle was the sure-fire best suited leader to single-handedly direct them to victory. She knew that. She had no qualms in admitting it. The runs where she had been at the helm of former Divisions were not nearly as serious as potential global damnation. She had co-led those ones; she had smaller tasks, controlled environments, and reliability of an actually formed team who respected her to fall back on. At the moment, she didn’t even know if she would have that.
She didn’t even know if she wanted to be the one to have that.
It was encoded into her DNA, seared into each little moral fiber of her consciousness. She knew, when things such as this arose, she would always want to battle it. It was who she was. Regardless of the scarred hermit she become over the past two years, she still felt her whole body pulse with an eagerness to get a move on and quell the next threat. But shouldering the idea of being the designated ringleader of a shunned ex-vigilante group did not sit well with her. She wanted to run from responsibility of it, to hide from having to face being the strong one. She knew she couldn’t be the big boss yet again. She would flop, disappoint both her team and everyone else relying on them. Yet some unbroken fraction of her couldn’t fathom watching another man or woman run the very reason for her existence into the ground. Not while she stood idly off on the sidelines and let it happen.
Truthfully, Merle didn’t know what she wanted.
Yawning, feeling the sore ache in her shoulder blades as she stretched, Merle slipped out from beneath the covers. She touched her bare feet down on the warm, hardwood floor and hung her head. She was exhausted, physically and emotionally. A craving for coffee temporarily stole her focus as she stared at the little kitchenette across the room. It felt idiotic to be thinking about coffee at a time when doom was lurking at the outer rim of their solar system.
‘But we’ll try to not,’ Merle told herself. ‘We cannot think about this. Not now. Good Lord, not now. Come on. We’ve got to keep it together.’ It didn’t work, trying to sweep her mind away to greener pastures. As she went about her quick morning, she thought of Desecration, of her days in China fighting an inhuman army; she remembered The Psychogenerative Law riots of ’91, and the time a bullet grazed her ear in a bank heist. She had fought other battles. She was a war veteran, the last living member of The First Division; she was a hero to many, an inspiration to millions.
And yet the instinct to return to her countryside home and lock herself away until everything ended. Even the compulsion to fight couldn’t drown that urge.
‘We can survive this,’ Merle lied to herself. ‘We can. We can do this. We have done worse. This is no different. You got this, Merle. You got this.’
~*~
“Pardon me,” Merle mumbled. The tall, thin man with the wispy moustache bowed his head respectfully, one hand tucked behind his back and the other supporting the empty silver tray. He took a step backward, letting Merle slip by him and scoot around the circular table. She tried to glide with a graceful gait she had never quite mastered, but both her natural awkwardness in her own skin and wearing a form-fitting black dress one size too small made it impossible to walk like she knew how to.
Maybe once upon a time she may have been successfully grafted into the socialite scene despite how little she had liked it. Posing this way and that, knowing the proper reactions to camera flashes, hearing her name shouted out like she were a superstar at a concert, they were things her flesh had since shed with a great sigh of relief.
Nearing the back wall of the small convention center, Merle slowed to a stop. She turned around, looking out at the chattering collection of formally-dressed PsyGen’s – some of the most important and influential in all of Europe – and felt a slight inkling of being entirely out-of-place. That discomfort of not belonging crawled across her skin with a warmth she didn’t enjoy. If it wasn’t for the purple-feathered masquerade mask and blonde wig styled in the likes of a mid-1990’s Lady Lust, Merle would have felt nothing but hesitation and doubt attending the 30th Annual Commemoration of Heroes. But knowing her identity was kept under wraps somehow gave her an added boost of confidence being there. No one knew it was Zenith under the mask. So long as she didn’t blow her cover in the most dismal of fashions, she was safe. And she felt it.
“Enlighten me again why we’re here,” the voice of Maria crackled in Merle’s ear. It was an incredulously small earpiece Merle wore, the same kind Vorian von Traupitz once manufactured for The Divisions. Wearing it again brought about mixed feelings of nostalgia and regret.
“To view the clientele,” Merle mumbled in what came out as a poor Cockney accent.
There was silence on the other end. Merle subtly prodded the earpiece with her index finger, thinking it had died on her, when there was a sudden cough in her ear.
“That voice, um… the hell was that?” Maria slowly asked.
“I’m, um, well, I-I need to blend in,” Merle stammered.
“Yeah, but maybe just don’t… do any of that…” Maria answered. “But, so, why the Mackey’s first? Sure, they were hot shit and all, but –”
“I don’t know if your mother would appreciate you speaking like that,” Merle teasingly chastised her friend. With a loose hand she reached out and daintily snatched a glass of champagne from off the tray of a passing server.
“Merle Joyce Moreau, was that a joke you just made? You’re capable of that?” Maria gasped. Merle couldn’t help but crack a smile. It felt like old times.
“I try to seem human every now and then, yes,” Merle replied. She lifted her chin, pointed her nose to the ceiling, and spun around as a portly man attempted approaching Merle. In an accent Merle was certain sounded favourably New Zealand-like, she continued speaking. “To answer your question: they are the only two from the list that have not been former guests of any party and did not attend our aforementioned escapade –”
“Our what now?” Maria interrupted.
“Adventbrook,” Merle whispered from the corner of her mouth. There was an audible, “ahh,” on Maria’s end as she understood. As intelligent as Maria Diaz was, Merle couldn’t deny it that her all-knowing accomplice had not always been the quickest to pick up on purposely elusive explanations.
Or basic common sense.
Clearing her throat and nimbly sashaying further away from the small cluster of retired PsyGen’s that had formed near Merle, she added, “It may prove easier convincing these two to attend our next ball first. And with more numbers behind us –”
“It’ll be easier to get other people to join,” Maria concluded. Merle could almost picture the smug look Maria had of finishing Merle’s sentence for her. Merle would let her have this one, she decided.
What Merle didn’t add to her reasoning was the heavier truth. Alexander and Shirleen Mackey were the only two that Merle could trust that she had not disappointed. Facing the two siblings would take less courage and owning-up for her faults than it would to confront someone who had survived Adventbrook. All of those people Merle had ignored for the past two years. Alex and Shirley would be an easy, guiltless start.
There was an exclamatory shout in the earpiece, loud enough that Merle was certain the identical twin duo Flint and Tinder heard it from twenty or-so feet away.
“And let the records show the Mackey sisters have just showed up, courtesy of front lobby camera A,” Maria chirped. “And might I say, Mr. Mackey, you are one Tower I’d like to explore.”
“I’m heading to position,” Merle briskly said, pretending she hadn’t heard the last bit of Maria’s commentary. She tipped the lip of the champagne glass to her mouth and downed it as classily as she could in one big swig. “I’ll talk to you when I’m there.”
“What, I can’t talk ‘til you get there?”
“I’d prefer it that way, yes,” Merle coolly retorted.
~*~
It had gotten chillier than Merle anticipated, quicker than she could have predicted. She kept her jaw clenched to keep her teeth from chattering, and even as she hopped from foot-to-foot and paced the length of the rooftop, she felt the cold in her fingertips and nose.
Merle had missed the underprepared wardrobe choice mistakes for late night stakeouts. These were all minor details she had forgotten about, the little things about the job that she kept stumbling upon and smirking like an idiot over.
Over the rumble of cars and a bulky plane flying overhead, Merle swore she heard noises in the stairwell – the ricocheting footfalls of heavy feet thudding off the metal steps. Around the corner of the door leading indoors she leaned against the wall, mentally prepping herself for the encounter. She had discarded the wig and mask, feeling no need to conceal her identity in the pitch blackness of night. It would only make for an unnecessary theatrical reveal, and Merle was not the type of superhero to revel in the melodrama of the business.
Taking a sharp breath inward, Merle held the air inside her lungs, desperately straining to hear any noises. She felt her heartbeat pulsing in her head, her ears. She was nervous, and she didn’t know why. The stairwell had fallen silent. Had she been hearing things all along?
‘I should contact Maria and tell –‘
A loud bang of the metal door slamming against the brick wall rang out through the still night. Startled, Merle jumped and retreated further away from the wide open space of the rooftop, slinking along the wall. Suddenly she felt ridiculous for not keeping a readied weapon at-hand. It was not that either Shirley or Alex would pose as a threat per se, but in a convention full of PsyGen’s whose moral status would always be unclear and the possibility of anti-psychogenerative terrorists lurking in the shadows like Merle currently did, whoever burst through the door to the rooftop very well may have been Merle’s next victim.
It brought Merle great disappointment in herself for not thinking the entire scenario through better.
Someone spoke – a male, and Merle couldn’t remember if that was what Alex’s voice had sounded like or not. It had been too long since she last spoke with the young man to recall whether it was deeper than that or not.
A female answered him. Something in that voice rang a bell. Taking her chances, Merle moved forward, careful to walk silently and hold her breath in. She neared the edge of the wall and dared peak around it just enough to make out the forms of a large, thick-bodied man and a smaller woman.
‘This is it. This is them,’ Merle thought to herself. Nervous, still, with a dash of spontaneous self-consciousness added in for spice. She counted down to three several times in her head before taking the first – audibly crunchy on the gravel – step out from behind the wall.
Words didn’t come to her, not immediately. Every last pore in her brain seeped out blanks and uselessness; her tongue felt like it had become a dried, shrivelled worm in her mouth. As the silence dragged on for too long for comfort, Merle parted her lips, let out an airy attempt at speaking, and tried again.
“Alex, Shirley,” Merle greeted the two with a nod. “It’s me. Merle. And I need you.”