Wonder City Stories

The Grave of Your Deserving

The Wonderful House boards were crazy with the news.

Somehow, it didn't surprise me, though. We'd never heard about Brandon's family on the show. They'd talked about Professor Canis, we had the memorable visit from Lizzie's father, Tom's aunt and uncle had come up from time to time, and Jeshri's family was always in her conversation. But not Brandon's. It seemed somehow fitting, karmically, that even his family abandoned him in the end.

Of course, it didn't seem fair that the people who had the most reason to dislike him were forced into the position of taking care of him. And of course they had to, especially after their closing video laying claim to him as "their jerk." They would have been ripped to shreds if it had come out that Brandon's body had been surrendered to the government for dissection.

I popped to a different screen and signed a half dozen petitions to do away with the Gold Stars research law. I knew that Ruth -- or someone -- would take care of me when I died, because god knows no one wants the government to dissect a Class 10 telepath. But didn't all the other paras, all the regular paras, all the homeless paras, anyone at all who wasn't quite the ideal human being, have a right to be buried with their secrets? Patriotic duty, my left asscheek.

It also didn't surprise me that the show's producers had abandoned any responsibility for Brandon along with their responsibility for payout or, you know, the safety of their "contestants". I did notice, however, that the producers tried to jump on the funeral bandwagon once it got rolling. In an interview with Simon:

WonderBlog: So will the funeral be televised?

Simon: We'll be livestreaming it for the fans.

WonderBlog: But no TV?

Simon: We couldn't reach an amicable compromise with the show's producers, who are in the best position to produce a televised version. They were interested in the funeral, but not interested in meeting any conditions, and we weren't interested in being screwed over again.

WonderBlog: Speaking of screwed over, who's paying for the funeral?

Simon: Fortunately, not us. There's a fund established by the Guardians and Gold Stars for the funerals of paras without families who die in a supervillain action.

Oh, good, I thought, at least the kids weren't going to have to cough up for the ridiculous costs of a funeral.

The livestreamed funeral was fascinating. I tuned in late (after taking practically every drug in my pharmacopeia that suppressed my powers without just knocking me out), just in time to see hundreds of fans packing into the largest room of the Weinstein Funeral Home. The camera view switched to Simon, in a tailored black suit, and Jeshri, in a somber brown skirt suit, walking out to meet Tom, who was pulling on a tweed sportcoat over a black polo shirt and khakis as he crossed the parking lot.

"You made it!" Simon said, shaking his hand.

"I couldn't let you guys face this without me," Tom said, next hugging Jeshri. "No luck with his dad though."

"What happened?" Jeshri said, and they all turned and started walking toward the funeral home.

"I stopped at the address you gave me, just outside Pittsburg," Tom said. "Parking the rig was a bitch and the neighbors all came out to stare. Upscale but older neighborhood, almost all white."

"Surprise," Simon muttered.

"Anyway," Tom said with a shrug, "I rang the doorbell. The lights were on and the TV was going, so I kept at it till he opened the door. And guys, the fumes just about knocked me the fuck over."

"Drunk?" Jeshri said.

"As a skunk," Tom said. "He was in his wifebeater and a pair of sweatpants and had about a week's worth of stubble. Looked just like Brandon would have after twenty years of partying and smoking."

"Yugh," Jeshri said.

"I'll spare you more gory details," Tom said as they neared the door. "Let's leave it at him telling me he wouldn't attend anything associated with his wife's filthy para crotch-dropping, in those words, even if it was the funeral for every backstabbing bastard para in the world at the same time. And then he mock-apologized that his wife was on the other side of the world, probably screwing someone who looked like me, when she could have been here, comforting me for the loss of my buddy, if only all paras weren't also great big homos."

"I think I'm going to be sick," Jeshri said, looking the part.

"Guess we know more about why Brandon was such a jackass now," Simon said.

"It's no excuse," Lizzie said, emerging from the doorway. "I mean, look at my dad."

"Must I?" Simon said.

"He's at least as big a jerk as Brandon's dad," Lizzie said, "and I, at least, try to be decent to other people." She was wearing a white blouse and pair of dark blue slacks.

Tom nodded. "You've got a point."

They hesitated outside the door, and then group-hugged.

"Time to butch up," Simon said, breathing deeply.

"Let's get this over with," Lizzie said, breaking away from the others and opening the door.

The camera switched back to the interior of the packed room. My computer system was blurring out faces except those I knew personally, so I noticed Ira and Suzanne Feldstein sitting in the front row, Ira in a crisp, bright Mister Metropolitan uniform and Suzanne in a dark burgundy suit. I saw Ruth, Olivia, and Larentia sitting together a couple of rows back, noticeably not in their more recognizable Ultimate, Fat Lady, and Professor Canis personas. The Steel Guardian was there with Sekhmet, representing for their particular teams. Brainchild, looking pale and wan, all nose and glasses, in a shirt, vest, and many-pocketed trousers, sat next to Wire, whose weirdly floaty blue forelock only briefly distracted me from the shining metal hand she flexed idly in her lap. And just as people were settling in and a man was stepping to the podium, the Equestrian and her horse (in his human form) strode up the aisle to sit with Ira and Suzanne.

The camera view then shifted to the plain black coffin with chrome trim and rails, against which leaned a small easel holding a photograph of a slightly younger, pleasantly-smiling Brandon -- probably a school photo of some sort. I could see any number of floral offerings around the coffin, including an ostentatious bunch of white lilies from the "It's a Wonderful House" producers.

The man at the podium was pastor of a local church who knew Tom (we were not vouchsafed an explanation for that). He was an uninspiring speaker -- I wished for the preacher from Mama's church, whose eloquence she always spoke of in glowing tones -- but white preachers have never particularly impressed me. I tuned out everything he said and concentrated on the images: the camera pans over the crowd (mostly young white people, I noticed), the expressions on the faces of the Wonderful House cast and crew (my system recognized Eartha the camerawoman in that group, and from her face I guessed she shared my assessment of the speaker), and the repeated switches back to the coffin.

He spoke for only about five minutes, which was a blessing, and no one else apparently cared to speak, so Olivia got up and sang "Ave Maria" in her most restrained voice, accompanied by a pianist I didn't know (and so couldn't see). When she was done, the pianist swung into something slow and somber, and Simon, Lizzie, Jeshri, Tom, Eartha, and another crew member I didn't know went forward, lifted the coffin, and carried it out on their shoulders. The crowd began to pour out the doors after them.

I walked away from the livestream while they drove to the cemetery. My computer system was excellent, but with the speed the cars were moving, it would inevitably miss blocking some people, and I just didn't need the headache. My family phone rang while I was pouring myself a glass of tea.

"Hey, Mama," I said.

"Are you watching the funeral?" she said.

"Of course," I said.

"You made yourself so sick over all that," she said, sucking her teeth in annoyance. "I can't imagine why you want to watch that horrible boy's funeral now."

"Because he's the end of the story," I said, adding three teaspoons of sugar to my iced tea. "It's about closure, Mama. He was that man's last victim."

"Well," she said, somewhat mollified. "When you put it that way. I suppose. Is that woman there?"

"Suzanne Feldstein? Yes, she was in the front row with her father-in-law," I said, sipping the tea and going through a door into one of my little parks, where I kept promising myself to start an aviary so I could have birdsong, another one of those things I miss.

"She wrote a very nice memorial to Yenaye and the other women, I thought," Mama said.

"Yes, I thought it was good too," I said, sitting on one of the wooden benches. The tone of her voice was detached, and I could tell there was a pressure of something she wanted to tell me. I waited.

"Rennie, I called you to tell you something," Mama said finally.

"What's up?" I said.

"Well, first thing, your cousin Benjamin asked me to ask you if you were serious about wanting a puppy, because he knows one that needs a home," she said. Mama doesn't like dogs, and that dislike dripped off her voice.

"Tell Ben that I absolutely want a new puppy, and he should send me photos," I said, feeling really excited for the first time in a while.

"You know him and his foolery with dogs," Mama said. "Of course he'd find you a dog. It'll have fleas, you know."

"There's medicine for that, Mama," I said, tamping down the excitement. "What else did you want to tell me?"

She fell silent. "I had one of my seeing dreams, Rennie," she said, her tone uncharacteristically hesitant.

"And?" I knew better than to say anything else at all, because she'd take it as disbelief and never tell me.

She cleared her throat uncomfortably. "I saw you alone with your dog. All alone, mind you, and not in your house." She always called the bunker my "house". I guess it made it sound less like I was locked away. "Looking out a great big window over the city." Throat-clearing again. "That's all. But I knew it was a seeing."

"Thank you, Mama," I said, feeling chilled. "I don't know what it means, but I'll remember it."

"You do that," she said, but I could tell she was gratified. I was the only one of her children who believed in her seeing dreams. I had reason to. "All right, I'd best be getting on. You take care now, Rennie."

"I will. You too, Mama," I said. "I love you."

"And I love you, girl," she said, and hung up.

When I got back to the screen with my half-glass of tea, they'd gotten to the cemetery and were lowering the coffin into the raw hole in the green earth. As I watched fans and acquaintances pass by the grave to throw flowers into it, I raised my glass. May it be sweeter for him next time around.

---

Note from the Author:

Renata's not the only one grateful for closure here!

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Full of Evil Clowns

I'd finally conquered my headache after drugging myself unconscious for about twenty hours, and I'd rescheduled all my clients for the next two weeks.  I felt better -- sore all around the edges, but better -- and I'd been swimming a lot.

Ruth called and I managed to keep the call short.  "Have you talked to Nereid and Wire?" I said after the initial greetings and stream of gratitude.

"Yes," Ruth said.  "Well, I've talked to Wire.  She said the whole thing was Nereid's idea, so I've been trying to get in touch with Pacifica.  She hasn't returned my calls yet."

"She's shy," I said, but I frowned and made a mental note to talk to the Equestrian.  "And probably exhausted."

"That's what Wire suggested," Ruth said.  "Anyway, thank you, Rennie, for everything.  I know what you did with those kids wasn't easy at all for you."

"They needed me," I said.  "And I wanted to be part of bringing that bastard down.  He killed a friend of my family."

"Damn, girl, you didn't tell me that," Ruth said.  

"Sorry," I said.  "I just... well, you were busy."

She sighed.  "All right.  Well, I'm glad you could be part of the resolution, at least."

"Me too," I said.  "Hey, Ruth, you know I love talking to you but..."

"You're still fried, I know.  Take care of yourself, boo," Ruth said.  "You're still coming to the party, right?"

Until that moment, I'd completely forgotten about Ruth's upcoming 50th birthday party.  "Oh, hell, yes," I said.  "I wouldn't miss it."

"I'll tell Sophie," she said.  "Love you."

"Love you too," I said, and we hung up.

I was grateful that I'd managed things so well, because I had a chance for a swim before the last episode of Wonderful House.

The speculation on what this final episode would be like had run wild on the Internet.  A memorial to Brandon?  The other housemates talking in detail about that night, since very little of the real story had come out?  Lizzie reconciling with her father?  (I vehemently hoped not.)  Simon and any of the other housemates confessing their undying love for each other?  (The biggest part of the fandom I frequented was pro-Simon/Lizzie, but a not-insubstantial proportion was pro-Simon/Jeshri.  There were lesser contingents for all the other combinations, including triads and even all four together, and even smaller groups that 'shipped non-Simon pairings.)  (I don't go to the parts of fandom that like Brandon.)

I think that no one, not even me, expected what we got: an hour of retrospective, talking heads analyzing the interactions and relationships, and a lot of voiceover on the scenes of the housemates packing their rooms.  Not a single line of current dialog from the housemates.  The only time any anger at all was allowed to show was when all of them were sitting in the producer's office, glowering at the PARABI executive who was, reportedly, letting them know that Brandon's death violated the agreement and there would be no payout.

I could almost hear the "OH HELL NO" in all their minds as I watched that scene, even though the voiceover was attempting to spin their glares as anger about Brandon.  I wondered what the fan response would be, so when the episode ended, off I went to the forums.

Many people were baffled.  "Wait, why isn't anyone being allowed to talk?"  More were angry: "The deal was no damage to the house! How does getting killed in a freak accident off the property count as violating the deal?"  Others were paranoid: "Brandon was killed by one of his housemates, probably Lizzie!  The lawyers have a gag order on everyone!"

The forums exploded for about half an hour, and then the link appeared.

A few of us were half-waiting for it, and pounced on it.

SuperTube's dynamic hit counter started running up while I was waiting for the video clip to load.  And then the video started to run.

The usual Wonderful House logo appeared, then "It's" was crossed out and replaced by "It Was Never", and the theme music slowed and morphed into something more sinister.

Simon was sitting in a leather chair by a roaring fireplace, dressed in an impeccably tailored black suit with a red silk pocket square and matching tie.  He looked squarely into the camera and said, in a voice more mellow and trained than he'd previously demonstrated (why, yes, he had attended acting classes in college after all, thanks, Parapedia), "After learning what the final episode of 'It's a Wonderful House' was to show, the cast and crew met in secret to discuss what to do.  All of us felt that the episode was a copout, cheating the fans who stuck with us all this time.  Today, we would like to present you, our fans, with our best gift, the only gift we can give you: the truth."

The usual opening, sans music, played, and Simon's voiceover said, "We thought we were participating in a perfectly normal, every day reality show.  What we didn't know was that the deck had been stacked -- both knowingly and unknowingly -- against us by the powers that be for the show."

"Knowingly," he went on, and the view zoomed in on one of the all-too-common images of Brandon, leerly vaguely and drunkenly at Lizzie and Jeshri in the living room, "because there is now documented evidence--" the view switched to a file folder in Brandon's disaster of a room, opened to a contract clearly branded with the IaWH logo "--that the producers paid Brandon a considerable sum to appear on the show to act as a prod to induce conflict."  The key clause of the contract was circled in red, and a clickable link to the document appeared.  I let the video continue to play.

We were then treated to a montage of images of Brandon getting shoved aside by one or another housemate, of Tom only just stopping himself from throwing a punch at Brandon's grinning face, of Jeshri electrocuting Brandon (leaving him rolling on the floor, his shorts showing a wet patch in front -- I note that this had never appeared on the show, of course), of Simon going semi-lupine in the face and snapping at Brandon with his flashing teeth, and finally of Lizzie throwing the boiling water on him, hitting him up the backside of the head with a sizzling frying pan, nailing him in the balls with his own baseball bat, and throwing the dishes at him so that he fell backwards down the stairs.

"Unknowingly," Simon said, "because they failed to carry out background checks on any of the crew, though they checked the cast out very thoroughly, even down to checking our credit ratings."

Watson appeared onscreen, with an identifying caption ("Watson Holmes, Consulting Detective").  She was dressed up only slightly, having added a tweed blazer to her usual buttondown shirt.  "It took me all of fifteen minutes to run superficial background checks on the entire camera, sound, and light crew, as it would for any professional.  I found that there is a member of the sound crew who likes to drive very fast, a member of the light crew who had recently divorced with allegations of abuse on both sides, a member of the production staff with a history of stalking, and a member of the camera crew with a history of domestic violence, sexual assault, and even a rape arrest that did not end in a conviction, due to technicalities rather than a failure to prove guilt."

"We got our first indication that something might be amiss," Simon said, returning to the screen, "when a member of the cast received a tip from a para fan that she had picked up a detail during a live broadcast that suggested we had a murderer in our midst.  That cast member shared this information with the rest of the cast, other than Brandon, because we had some indication that Brandon might be violent himself."

We then saw the clip of Brandon bragging about raping the drunk woman from the frat party, and the clip of Brandon talking to his cameraman about Simon and making vague threats. Then there was a scene in the dark of him coming in drunk late one night and wandering into random bedrooms until there was a wild scuffle that ended with Simon walking him up to the third floor, twisting Brandon's arm up behind his back and holding onto a handful of his hair.

"Then someone tried to blackmail Jeshri," Simon said, "by threatening to release personal photos of her to the Internet at large. The condition for not releasing them was meeting the blackmailer at a nearby park in Staybird in the middle of the night."

The camerawork was uninspired, but showed the housemates walking through the park. "Of course, we weren't about to let her go alone," he said in voiceover. They came around a curve and there was Brandon, clearly visible in the streetlight.

They played a bit of film that showed Brandon confessing to being involved in the blackmail, and then events dissolved into the chaos of the fight. The picture froze on Brandon's confused face. "Yes, Brandon was party to the blackmail, and was part of setting up the meeting, but we believe he didn't know about the murderous aspect of his partner in crime. Our best evidence is the casual manner in which the true criminal cast him aside." The video played forward, and even played through the killer hitting his scrambler device, so the bug cams were certainly hardened. We got a slo-mo image of the killer slamming Brandon in the chest, played from several angles.

"This blow, unbeknownst to us, ruptured Brandon's aorta," Simon said, and the picture returned to his cozy parlor. "Several of us went after the killer, while others called the ambulance. Tom rode to the hospital with Brandon, who was declared dead shortly after reaching the emergency room."

The view switched to Tom, who appeared to be sitting in a cafe. "He never woke up," Tom said in an uncharacteristically rough voice. "He said, 'I thought he was my bro,' and passed out and never fucking woke up again. I mean, what kind of fucking epitaph is that? He thought everyone was his bro, even people he insulted. He was like some kind of malevolent golden retriever. But goddammit, he might've gotten better some day."

Then Simon was sitting at that table, wearing casual clothing and looking angry. "I'm told I shouldn't feel bad about not staying to check on him," he said in a subdued voice. "I'm told he was a dead man, sitting there, and there was nothing I could have done. I'm told it was better that I went after the killer to try to keep him from hurting anyone else. But, you know, it's hard to believe that."

Jeshri was looking up at the ceiling and saying, "It pisses me off that every time I think about him, sitting there on the ground trying to breathe, I start tearing up. I don't want to cry for him. I thought he was an asshole and worse. But I can't get it out of my head: that look on his face when he couldn't understand why he couldn't stand up, why he couldn't breathe, why the one person who he thought was his friend had just hurt him so badly, and..." She wiped her face savagely with her sleeve. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."

Lizzie was sitting there now, being filmed from the same angle, and she was slowly tearing a cardboard cup sleeve into thin strips as she spoke. "When I started giving him mouth-to-mouth there in the park," she said, not looking at the camera, "all I could think was that when he woke up, he was never going to let me live that down. There would be all the stupid comments about missing out on kissing me and everything, and I would kick myself every time he said anything. I hated every second of taking that stupid moral high ground of trying to save his life. And then the shit died. And I felt so goddamn guilty about thinking bad stuff about him I could barely breathe. I still feel guilty. I feel guilty for being relieved that I never have to face him again." She crumpled the mass of cardboard in her hands and gritted her teeth, saying, "When someone you love dies, you cry and scream about it. What the hell do you do when someone you hate dies?"

Back in the parlor, Simon stood up gracefully and posed with an elbow on the mantelpiece. "Was this tragedy avoidable? The cast and crew of 'It's a Wonderful House' thinks so. Was this tragedy the fault of the producers? Certainly in part, since the killer was one of their camera crew -- one that a simple background check would have revealed." A clickable link to a file appeared on the screen. "Does a tragedy in which the producers were partly complicit, even by omission, void the contract of the cast? Our lawyer doesn't think so."

A black woman a bit older than me appeared on the screen; her caption said she was Marilyn Henderson, Wonder City attorney. "I have reviewed the contracts of all surviving cast members and I find nothing in it that would suggest that the manner or fact of Mr. deJong's death would void the agreement, as the producers of the show have claimed."

Back to Simon. "The cast and crew have discussed the matter, and, given our own limited resources and the comparatively limitless resources of PARABI and the producers of 'It's a Wonderful House', we feel a lawsuit would be worth less than the energy we would have to put into it. Our fans are the only good thing to come out of this experience, and so we decided that it would be most productive to give this information to you. If we manage to instill a little shame in the producers while we're at it, good." He shrugged and smiled, and Jeshri, Tom, and Lizzie came in from the wings (Tom in a suit, Jeshri in a little black dress, and Lizzie in a white blouse and black slacks). "Thanks for sticking with us. I, for one, will be glad to get back to the coffee shop."

"Me too," Lizzie said.

"I'm looking forward to my own apartment and my own truck," Tom said. "And about a month's worth of sleep."

"I love you guys, but I want my own roommates and my life back," Jeshri said, and they all nodded.

"And maybe some of us will go on to do stuff in the spotlight," Simon said. "Or maybe not."

"I'll still be on Twitter," Lizzie said.

"Me too," Jeshri said. "I've met some awesome people that way."

"I was thinking about writing a book about all this," Tom said thoughtfully.

"You better change my name," Lizzie said, punching him playfully in the arm.

"Mine too," Jeshri said. "And no wild imaginings about our 'alone time'."

The camera pulled back and back, the audio fading into an instrumental song that was nothing like the theme song, the former housemates moving into a group hug as they faded from view.

Credits rolled. At the end of the credits, on a black screen, the words, "In memory of Brandon deJong," appeared, and after a second, under that line, in fake typewriter script, "He was a jerk, but he was our jerk."

I sat back from the screen. "Hoooooo," I exhaled. "I hope they've got Ms. Henderson on retainer."

---

Note from the Author:

Sorry, y'all. I spent all day yesterday in a car, and just didn't have the brain juice left to post anything. I keep hoping things will get back to "normal" again after Thanksgiving, but I just know I'm kidding myself. :)

We've been falling down the list, so please remember to vote for WCS!

At Present Low, But Will Soon Be Better

Ira's attention was snatched away from the chase by Jeshri's sudden lurch of dismay. He looked through her eyes and saw Brandon shored up against the river wall.

Brandon smiled briefly, wiping at the corner of his mouth. He tried to rise (a second time, apparently, according to Jeshri), but fell back against the wall. Tried again and failed again. He frowned and focused on the remaining group. "Hurts," he said, not very loudly.

Tom walked over quickly. "Did you hit your head?" he asked, crouching down next to his housemate.

"Uh," Brandon said, licking his lips. "I don't know?" He tried to reach up to touch the back of his head, but winced and dropped his hand to his side. "Hurts."

"What hurts?" Eartha said, standing a few feet from him.

"Um," Brandon said, trying a deep breath and making a pained noise. "Chest."

"He hit him in the chest," Jeshri said, reaching into her pocket and producing a cell phone.

"That won't work," Lizzie said to her, pointing at the phone.

Jeshri gave her a brief smile as the screen lit up under her fingertips. "Hardened. I work with electricity, remember?" She dialed and put the phone to her ear.

Brandon was frowning again, looking perplexed. "Can't... breathe right," he said between short breaths.

"He probably broke your ribs, dude," Tom said. "It's gonna hurt."

Brandon touched his chest vaguely, and his fingers caught in the strings of his hoodie. He wrenched them free impatiently. "Hurts," he said again. "A lot."

Jeshri was talking to the 911 operator. "Yes, supervillain combat at Staybird Park. No, he's run away toward town. We have an injured person here, though."

Ira looked at Brandon through Tom's eyes. He didn't like the ghastly grey color of Brandon's face, even allowing for the sodium vapor lamplight. Or the way Brandon's eyes were rolling. He's passing out, he said through the link. Try laying him back flat, son.

Tom needed Lizzie's help to stretch Brandon out on the chilly concrete. They bore with gritted teeth Brandon's pathetic hisses and whimpers, and Lizzie pulled off her own hoodie to drape over Brandon.

"Shock?" Tom said.

"Looks like it to me," Eartha said, peering. "I'll go to the front of the park to meet the ambulance." She zipped off, cautiously, in the direction the battle had gone. Meteor's head was not visible in the distance.

Oh, yes, Ira thought. He's in shock. Ira replayed what he'd seen of the blow through his memory. Oh, yes. Just like McMullin.

Can either of you take a pulse? he said into the link.

Lizzie said, Yes, I just finished my CPR cert at the Y. She knelt next to Brandon and fumbled for the pulse in his wrist.

Brandon was gasping for breath, short shallow inhalations through his teeth. His eyes were open, but slitted. "Thought he was my bro," he mumbled.

"He wasn't," Tom said, more than a little bitterly.

Jeshri knelt down and actually took Brandon's hand. "The ambulance is on its way."

I can barely feel his pulse, Lizzie said into the link.

The harsh panting suddenly stopped. "The fuck?" Tom said, only just barely stopped by Ira from unadvisedly shaking the man on the ground. "Brandon? Brandon?"

"He's not breathing," Jeshri said, eyes wide. "What can we do? We've got to do something!"

Mouth to mouth, Ira said, keeping the subsequent thought of for all the good it will do to himself. When none of the kids moved, he said, more urgently, Mouth to mouth, Lizzie. No compressions, I think.

Lizzie shoved Tom out of the way peremptorily and lurched forward. She carefully cleared Brandon's airway and started breathing for him.

In the distance, there was a faint wail of a siren.

"Just like McMullin," Ira said out loud at the table, rubbing his face. Watson looked at him, and he said, "Seen it before, in Korea. Corporal McMullin was hit by a boulder thrown by one of the bulletproofs on the other side. When they opened up his chest, he was full of blood."

Watson looked down at her phone. "Ambulance is 2 minutes away."

Ira looked back through the link, at the woman breathing for the man on the ground, another woman standing by worried, the man on his knees watching, all so very young. He hadn't felt this helpless since the Platinum Protector had died in his arms of a gut punch that not only pasted her insides but severed her spine. He drank his coffee and wished for something stronger. To toast McMullin, perhaps.

---

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Secret Identities Hide Many Things

"Move!" Megan hissed, springing to her feet and starting to run.

She felt more than saw Meteor catch up with her and whisk her into the air by catching her under the arms. She managed not to flail her suddenly relativley tiny size-32 feet in the air while this happened.

It was a matter of three giant strides across the park (she'd have to beg Ladybird to come out to fix the crushed bushes and snapped-off trees) and Megan was back on the ground.

Simon's empty trouser legs barely protruded from a fist-sized hole punched in the ground. The shredded sweater was nearby. A giant golden wolf crouched, snarling, between the housemates and the newcomer who was rising to his feet, a white man in midnight blue spandex and a billowing, hooded black cape.

A horrified shock of recognition rocked Megan back on her heels. Fuck! I know him!

Really? came Watson's interested query, over the flurry of other inquiries.

I met him my first day in town! Megan said, blank with horror as the man turned his sparkling, if somewhat sinister, large-chinned smile on the crowd. He was chasing the Merlin. Oh my god. Oh my god. I handed the Merlin to him. He said he'd been after him, and I just handed him over. I as good as killed him!

FOCUS! Renata's mental command poked Megan straight in the adrenal glands. Angst later, girlfriend, she added, a little more kindly.

The man had spun to face Megan and Meteor, and just seized Meteor's ankle and tossed her partly into the air, off balance. Meteor shrank rapidly as she fell, and she dropped with a crash into a copse of trees and boxwood hedges. He turned to Megan.

He had been trained to fight, somewhat. He knew how to throw a punch, for instance. Megan's arm registered a significant impact as she blocked -- she guessed that Watson's Class 5 estimate might be a little low.

Unfortunately for him, she'd been trained better.

When he skidded to a stop, shoring up against the lamp post recently vacated by Brandon, Simon pounced on him. The man twisted away, rolling to his feet. Simon's flashing teeth caught and tore off the hood and cape, leaving his face exposed. His eminently recognizable tiny eyes and birthmark shared space with a bleeding scrape across his cheek where one fang had scored him.

"Bro?" Brandon said hesitantly. Events had apparently confused him.

The cameraman's eyes narrowed and he slapped something on his belt. The camerawoman, Eartha, yelped and dropped her rig as it sparked vigorously.

The streetlight flickered briefly, but the hardened Wonder City infrastructure held.

"No more film," he said, sneering. "Just you all, dying."

"God, I've wanted to do this forever," Lizzie said, and, raising her arms toward him, dumped a vast red explosion of energy into the killer.

---

Note from the Author:
And I've been SO eager to post this, so THANK YOU ALL for commenting!

I believe it was interleaper who remembered the very first person Megan met in Wonder City. (Correct me if I'm wrong...) Good memory, indeed!

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Battlestations!

I settled into what I call my long-haul chair. It's intensely soft and it floats on some sort of magnetic cloud and is more stable than the floor, so even if I lose my shit and try to get up without the proper escape sequence, it won't totter over or anything. All my monitoring systems were online and checked. All my robots were nearby to try to minimize anything physical that I might try to do to myself. I had taken my pain medications and my focus-enhancing medications. At hand was an automated system that could detect incipient psychic flares (which are like solar flares, except they disrupt mental processes rather than electromagnetic processes) and either administer a fast-acting intramuscular tranquilizer or a hard electric shock, depending on the predicted magnitude of the flare.

I took a few deep breaths. It had been a while since I last did this. Being the nexus of a telepathic network is a surprising lot of work, primarily filtering of content and translation of the way that a given person thinks about things into a mutually understandable language. Doing this for a group of non-telepaths simultaneously requires the most exacting walls and split-second multitasking. I expected, when I agreed, to be wrecked for at least a week afterward.

I had remembered to go to the bathroom before I started. My mother had crammed some valuable life lessons into my brain on those long car rides to the Shore.

"Imaging on," I said, and the computer flipped up photographs of my telepathic targets. Which first? I contemplated the Wonderful House crew and decided, as I had expected, that I felt the most connection to Simon, so I focused on his photo, paying minute attention to the perfect lines of his jaw and cheekbones, the tight ripples of his brown-black hair, the yellow eyes behind their tinted shields...

Hello, Mr. Canis, I said when the tingle of contact rippled down my spine. His was a warm, quick-moving mind, full of an idealism I'd not had since I was eight or so.

Hello! he replied, trying not to sound startled, though I knew he was. A pleasure to, uh, meet you.

He had the pleasantly repressed mind of someone who has been trained to cope with psionics. The pleasure's mine, Mr. Canis. I stopped short of telling him I was a fan. Nothing like having a telepathic fangirl in your head to make you nervous.

Now it was easy. I looked at the others through Simon's eyes (and his other senses, which were distractingly acute) and added them to my collection: Jeshri, whose mind was a sharp stacatto of thoughts like blows; Tom, who was in an agony of fast-moving anxiety; Lizzie, whose world was always a little blurry; Megan, who was quivering with a steel-jacketed terror; Suzanne, whose inner world flew apart in pieces and crashed back together with her heartbeat; Watson, whose turbulent ideas had parted and smoothed for my entry; and to my surprise, Suzanne's father-in-law Ira, who was abuzz with excitement and nostalgia.

I stopped short of picking up the camerawoman, and after a quick consultation with Watson, left her out. She had not, after all, consented to a telepathic link and all its risks. I did scan her quickly, though, and discovered that she was Jeshri's camerawoman, her name was Eartha (yes, named for Eartha Kitt), she was, in fact, para, and she was rather nervous and excited about all this. At least they'd warned her it might be dangerous.

I saved the ghost for last. Meteor was alarmingly present for someone possessing another person, and I only got the faintest whiffs of the host personality. I wondered if Watson had set this up to see if I could pry Meteor loose from her moorings. I would believe in that sort of Machiavellian scheming from her.

All right, I said to them all. Everyone's in the loop.

I naturally picked up things I shouldn't know from their subconscious emotional levels. It shouldn't have surprised me that Megan and Simon had a history, I suppose, but it did; they'd played it very cool in Megan's one appearance on-screen. Watson and Megan were lovers, and both of them had been involved with the woman possessed by Meteor, resulting in some spectacularly conflicted emotions. Suzanne and Simon, of course, were desperate for each other. Lizzie had mad crushes on all three of her housemates (that was another surprise). Meteor hated everyone equally for being strange, perverted, and living (that was not a surprise). Lizzie also felt like she really should have gone before she left the house; I had to filter that like whoa or everyone would need to pee, including me.

Thank you, Watson said once I'd delivered all the general greetings. Her mental voice was crisp and snappy, and she was also speaking aloud for Eartha's benefit. You all know where you need to be. Megan, Meteor, you start now. House crew, give them two minutes and then start strolling to your destination.

What about you? Jeshri said. She was speaking aloud as well.

I'll be only a few blocks away with Suzanne and Ira, coordinating with Renata's help, Watson said.

There was a wisp of an apology as soon as my first name came out. Nothing like being inside each other's minds to bring everyone to a first-name basis, is there? I assured her.

Amusement came back from Watson, and I turned my attention to following Megan and Meteor.

The two of them proceeded in silence that was angry on Meteor's part -- I could tell she hadn't been entirely warned that she'd have to work with Megan -- and irritated on Megan's part -- because Meteor was snappish and because she had a terrible conflict between wanting to hate Meteor and having some sympathy for the girl. They were trying not to be noticeable as they hurried to the dilapidated dock where they were to hunker down and wait. Meteor, growing, could get them to the meeting place in a few seconds rather than the couple of minutes it would normally take to run there. I would have to do a tight job of filtering on these two: Meteor not only hated Megan but was terrified of her, particularly of being touched by her. A contagion sort of terror. Homophobia at its most refined. Lovely.

I watched the Wonderful House crew trying to stroll casually to the appointed meeting place. Jeshri and Lizzie kept exchanging reassuring hand-squeezes. Tom was concentrating on looking as intimidating as possible, throwing back his broad shoulders and puffing out his chest. Simon was quivering with nerves, paying exquisite attention to every breeze and every sound. He was worried about being able to get out of his clothes fast enough, and so had worn a thin knit v-neck sweater and a loose pair of linen trousers -- things he knew he could rip easily.

Watson was chattering easily and meaninglessly with Suzanne and Ira. Ira was peppering her with questions that even I could tell came from long experience -- no wonder Watson wanted him there as part of her strategy team. If nothing else, he could make a general prediction of the behavior of most sorts of supervillains.

I took a deep breath and consciously relaxed the muscles that had tensed up during this preparation.

It was almost midnight.

---

Note from the Author:
And so...

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Spooky Action at a Distance

It had been a long day with more clients than I usually saw: a few small emergencies with an almost entirely nonverbal teenager who was acting out strangely (she had started having menstrual migraines, and couldn't find a way to communicate it to her mother) and a young man with severe cerebral palsy who his grandmother suspected was being abused or bullied at his school (and who was). Heavier stuff than usual, but good and useful.

I was trying to decide whether or not to take my end-of-day meds. I thought I would probably sleep fairly well, and I didn't have any sense of lingering connection to any of the kids. I try to avoid taking my "as needed" medications too often. As I have learned over the years, telepaths medicate -- or self-medicate, or are medicated -- a great deal. If you are unfortunate enough to be a lower-class teenager of color with telepathy, you either end up in an institution, like I did, or you learn to self-medicate with whatever comes to hand. We're very fond of central nervous system depressants, and the easiest to come by is, of course, alcohol. Drink and maybe you won't hear what everyone is thinking of you. Drink and maybe you can't feel everyone else's pain. Drink yourself into a stupor and maybe you won't have someone else's dreams.

I didn't have a chance to take it up before I found myself in a lockdown unit. The doctors spent years trying to find the perfect cocktail of medications to shut me down without admitting they were shutting me down. No one wanted to believe in my telepathy -- paras were still thought of as all being like the World War 2 bulletproofs well into the 1980s, and the less showy powers put a lot of people in denial. The idea that there might be someone who could rifle through your brain as easily as most people rifle through cluttered drawers... well, I can understand the drugs.

Still, they made a lot of mistakes. Costly mistakes. Mistakes that traumatized a lot of staff and patients around me, and one grand mistake that left me wide open, like a phone left off the hook, like a microphone left switched on, and half a city experiencing electroshock therapy without any helpful medications. Ruth has never told me how many people died that day, and I have never looked it up, but it was the key event that put me into her capable hands.

So you might understand when I say that I try to find alternatives to medications. Because all medications interact with your particular state of being at that moment, and one never knows when you'll have a side effect you've never had before. I was far, far under Wonder City, but I could still walk in and out of the minds of just about everyone there, by intent or accident.

One of the very best alternatives I've found is the Internet. I understand this is pretty common.

So there I was, in my fuzzy garnet robe and matching slippers, sipping chamomile-mint tea and spending the early evening looking at cute animal pictures and horrible autocorrect errors. And I was struck by a fancy to pop over and look at the Wonderful House website.

My sisters would give me the side-eye if they knew I was turning into such a junkie for that show. Hell, I give myself the side-eye some days.

You see, they post video clips on the site, so you can always get more Wonderful House than just the hour once a week. They say that every week, they film over a thousand hours of footage. They have staff on the video feeds all the time, picking out snippets that were interesting enough to end up on the show. And then they have to sift through all of those and edit them together to make the show. Meanwhile, Terabytes of video end up on the virtual cutting room floor. So they share some of the gems.

The first one I ran into was "Brandon's Bathroom," and he's always a giant train wreck, so of course I clicked.

He was talking to the camera, sitting on the closed toilet in his unspeakably filthy and cluttered bathroom. He was flushed of face, wearing just a pair of shorts, his blond hair even more mussed and cowlicked than usual. He clutched a large Wonder Beer and stared down at it moodily.

"I'm glad I've got you to talk to, man," he slurred. "Everyone here hates me."

"Haters gonna hate, man," a strange man's voice said, and I realized it was the cameraman who he was so friendly with. "You're successful, you have more fans online than they do -- you'll always be better than they are and they know it."

Brandon smiled briefly at the camera and drank from the can. Then he stared at it again, and the smile oozed off his face. His mouth trembled a little, and his eyes were oddly bright -- I think he was on the verge of tears. "But they really hate me," he said, gesturing with the can and sloshing some of it on himself. His voice broke. "I didn't know you could be alone in a house full of people."

"Dude, it doesn't matter," the cameraman said, reaching out and patting Brandon's shoulder. "You just have to get through all three months and you've got a wad of cash to blow on a spring break trip or something. And everyone you meet will love you." He paused. "All the girls you meet will love you, too."

Brandon hiccoughed and smiled again. "Yeah," he said.

"You just have to man up, B," the cameraman said. "Suck it up. You're the only one with balls in this house, and you know it."

"Almost literally," Brandon hooted, scratching his crotch. The video chose that spot to freeze on, and ended. I scrolled it off quickly, before my eyes rolled clear out of my head.

The next clip that caught my eye was, "An Evening Event," so I clicked it. There was a longish buffering time, and then the words, "Welcome to the Wonderful Live Feed," flashed up. The picture came on too fast for me to realize what I'd done and then I was there.

I have tried again and again to describe what it's like to end up in this sort of situation, with no warning and no defenses and no meds. It's never quite enough to convey it, but I'll try again.

Imagine you suddenly have twenty pairs of legs, twenty pairs of eyes, twenty pairs of arms. You have twenty heads and twenty bodies, twenty pairs of ears, twenty noses. You are feeling through twenty skins, every itch and pain and pressure and heat and cold.

Think about how much sensory information you don't pay attention to every moment -- the sounds and rhythms and stinks and scents and lights and colors and shadows, the touch of your clothing, of the chair under you, of your hair on your forehead or the back of your neck. Think about not having those filters, and then think about having all that for twenty people. And you will understand that people's thoughts are not the thing that puts me in a fetal position when I'm surprised.

And I'm caught, like a fly in a spider's web, every kick or struggle done without leverage, every motion away getting me more firmly caught in the web.

I've spent years working out coping mechanisms to get me out of situations like this. I studied with all the most experienced (mostly self-taught) telepaths in the world. I worked with alien telepaths that Ruth took me to visit, who had all sorts of techniques and defenses taught to them in their schools from the first day they're born. I have figured out how to shut down the input, but it takes time and a fucking lot of effort.

Snapshot:
I'm wet. I'm freezing. My toes are numb. My sinuses ache with cold wind. I don't have a heavy jacket. The wind cuts right through me. Rain stings my face. My head hurts. My feet hurt. My fingers hurt. My teeth hurt.

Put a blanket on it, mug it, shove it through a door, slam the door. Every inch of my body will throb with pain for a week.

Too many voices. The director shouting, the generators thrumming, Brandon's huh huh huh laugh like nails on chalkboard. Jeshri's voice, light and breathy. Cameramen and women chattering. Shrieking feedback from a microphone. Tom's voice, low and blunt. The truck engine whines. The onlookers muttering. Simon's voice, husky and resonant. The shattering of a police siren. Screams from the onlookers, cheers from the crew. Lizzie's voice, strained and sharp.

I have to be deaf, deaf, deaf. I stick my fingers in my mental ears. I stuff cotton in my mental ears. I swath my mental head in layers of soundproofing. I focus on the sounds of my home: the hums of the computers, the low strains of Billie Holiday telling me that the systems had detected my distress and had set off my focus-assisting programs.

Everything stinks: sweat and diesel fumes and hot metal and menstrual blood and food and cigarettes and nausea and makeup and warm plastic and ozone and cheap beer and fear and desire and sour milk and garbage...

Pinch my nose shut. Duck under the surface of water. Anything to stop that visceral assault on my lizard brain. Sweet jasmine incense was burning not far from where I sat, wreathing me in its comforting smoke.

Too bright. Too many colors. Too much movement.

Close each set of eyes until I can actually see.

Simon is draped over the stone wall behind the house in his Gold Stars jacket and tight black hipster jeans. Jeshri is standing near him, hugging herself in her Wonder City U hoodie and black yoga pants and knee-high black boots. Lizzie, in a bomber jacket and jeans, is speaking to them in a furtive way, glancing around to make sure no cameras are near. Tom, shivering in a t-shirt and jeans, is being harangued by the director. I can't tell what they're supposed to be shooting out here in the back yard, in the horrible March weather. The sound people are huddled together for warmth with the camera crew. Brandon is chatting with them and drinking beer, flirting outrageously with one of the female sound engineers. The director claps his hands and everyone drags tiredly into position, production assistants fluttering around them like startled pigeons.

I close the last set of eyes and open my own. Now I can hear thoughts -- just surface thoughts, fleeting scattered things that come with several layers of meaning, memories, and disordered images. It takes some time, but I start sifting them out into distinct, coherent thought-bytes.

I hate this. I hate this. I'm so cold and tired. Poor kid didn't even give her time to shower or change she smells of sweat and terror and oh she's on the rag too poor kid. She looks like hell how dare they put her up here for the shoot? Everyone thinks she looks terrible... Should short out the generators and give us all a break. I haven't been working out this week I must look like shit why can't I put on a damn jacket? So tired, so tired, just get it over with... Oh christ you asshole just make up your mind how you want to shoot this one and get it over with we're all freezing our balls off. Beer beer beer wow nice how can she have cleavage in winter clothes? This fucking camera is fucking up again the picture's shit oh he's going to rip me a new one if he gets another day of shit footage... Want a cig, want a cig, god, why can't I just light up here? So hungry, but I'm out of points for the day, so I shouldn't go near the catering table, everyone will remind me of that huge lunch I had...

Then, from out of this morass, an icy-sharp-stinging-hate stabbed me behind the eye:
I'd like to feel her throat in my hands. It would feel so good, and I would crush it so slowly, and she would try to hurt me...

This was accompanied by vivid memories of doing exactly this thing. Memories. Plural.

Usually, I don't shut things down fast. It sometimes backlashes on me if I pull out of a big group situation too fast. But I have been in the minds of too many murderers in my life to want to spend any more time in this one's mind.

I came to with one of the maintenance robots -- Eliot -- gently shaking my shoulder and saying, "Renata? Renata? You are safe here, Renata, please wake up." It had very careful programming for situations like this.

I missed my dog Liza anyway, and her big cold worried nose poking under my chin and in my ear with loud snuffles and tiny little fretting whines, and the happy little dance she did with her front paws when I woke up.

My arm was bruised where I caught myself on the floor, and my hip was bruised where the arm of the chair had caught me as I threw myself sideways in unconscious physical mimicry of my psychic reaction. I had the taste of bile in my mouth, but I did not appear to have tossed my supper, for which I was grateful.

It took me a few moments to get myself back into my chair, leaning on Eliot to get there. I sat there, breathing deeply and slowly, for a long several minutes. Finally, I drank the rest of my tea, cold, to get the bad taste out of my mouth.

The browser window had been shut down in the emergency procedures. I stared at the blank computer desktop, trying to think of what to do.

The police were out. Even if I were willing to trust them to do the right thing, my information was vague and, more damning, telepathic. No one can legally act on a telepath's tip.

I was clicking open my telephone menu before remembering that Ruth was off-planet, searching for cures for Sophie.

I flipped down my telephone contacts, and selected one.

The phone rang twice before the deep, comforting tones of my therapist answered. "Pearl Wong, can I help you?"

"Pearl, it's Renata," I said, pleased that my voice wasn't shaking.

"What's happened?" she said, and I could feel her focus in on me keenly.

"I did something stupid, Pearl," I said. "I stumbled into a live feed of a film crew."

"Oh," she said, and there was a touch of relief. "How did getting out go?"

"Badly," I said. I took a deep breath again. "I know where that serial killer is, Pearl."

"I see," Pearl said, and the relief was snuffed out. "How are you feeling?"

"Shaky and sick," I said. "I'm planning to eat something for grounding and go for a swim later to clear things out."

"Sounds like a good plan," she said. "How about your meds?"

"I'm going to see how I feel after food," I said.

"Don't be too conservative," Pearl said in a light, reminding sort of way. One reason I love her is that she doesn't get maternal at me. I have quite enough people trying to be my mama; I don't need to pay someone to do it too.

"I won't," I said. "Pearl, what do I do?"

Pearl said, "Do you want to talk about where he is?"

"He's... someone on the set of It's a Wonderful House," I said. "I can't be more specific. There were a lot of people. It could have, I suppose, even been someone watching the filming, so even one of the neighbors? Or a passerby. Or... this isn't very specific, is it?"

"That's one of your curses, Renata," Pearl said wryly. "Specificity is hard-won with you. But this gives me some ideas of where to go with the information."

"Really?" I said.

"Yes," Pearl said. She paused, then said, slowly, "What I'm thinking about isn't strictly professional, but I think the situation warrants a little break. I won't mention you."

"Okay," I said, rubbing my face to remind myself where I was. "Okay."

"I promise that I will find someone who will listen to this, Renata," Pearl said.

"Okay," I said. "Okay, thank you."

"Right," she said. There was a pregnant pause.

I knew what she was expecting. "I promise I won't go spelunking," I said. "I don't want to. I don't want to see inside that man's head again."

"All right," she said. "I'll let you know what I hear back, okay?"

"Okay. And I'll go get something to eat." I did another deep breath. "Thanks, Pearl."

"It's what I'm here for," she said.

"One more thing," I said.

"Hm?" Pearl said.

I said, "I think I'm ready for that new dog now."

---

From the Author:
I got up way too early this morning to be entertaining, alas.

Remember that, through May, I'm running the commenting incentive again, because reading your comments is the most fun on the Internet I have all day. So if I get 50 total comments in May, I will post twice weekly through June. As before, if you all post 75 comments, I'll post twice weekly through July too. Get up to 100 comments, the twice-weekly postings continue through August.

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Even Those With Only One Head

I tuned in late because I had a difficult patient session run long, and I wanted to swim and take my meds before I sat down to watch the inevitable drama.

When the picture came on, I saw Lizzie and Simon in their khaki trousers, polo shirts, and aprons, serving up lattes with a smile to customers at the Great Scot. I confess I was more intrigued by the coffee shop than what they were doing, and spent a lot of attention -- part of this was my meds at work, making it hard for me to pay attention to just one thing -- looking at the details of the background: the machines and their muffled screeches, the rows of Great Scot merchandise on shelves, the patter of the complicated orders, the bad art on the walls, even the notes they were making on the paper cups were enthralling. I'll never see the inside of one of these shops live, and for some reason, the busy-ness of them is fascinating and appalling in equal doses.

Then they switched to following Jeshri at her job. She was wearing a plain gray coverall with the power company's patch on the left shoulder, and she was rapidly scaling a telephone pole -- with all safety gear in place -- to examine a blown transformer at the top. A few men -- one white, two black or Hispanic -- down below, wearing similar coveralls, were watching her and talking among themselves.

The narrator was making bad puns, but the worst was cut to a moment later, with Brandon saying, "That's what she does for a living? Man, she could climb my pole any day." He started his Beavis-and-Butthead laugh, and high-fived his cameraman.

Then Tom was weightlifting, wearing a ripped muscle shirt and shorts. He was sweating, though I suspected that he'd been oiled to enhance the effect of his gleaming muscles flexing heavily. He was making the faces the weightlifters always seem to make. Brandon poked his head into the room and said, "Man, you work too hard."

Tom grunted without even looking.

"Do you do kung fu too?" Brandon asked, doing a faux Bruce Lee pose.

Tom rolled his eyes and didn't answer.

"Aw, c'mon, man," Brandon said. "You haven't talked to me for days now."

"That's because," Tom said, punctuating his words with bicep curls, "bitching at me for 'what your people did to my uncle over there' without knowing that my parents lost everything in the evacuation of Saigon is one of the stupidest racist-ass things to come out of your mouth yet."

"Well, sorry," Brandon said, without sounding at all contrite. "What was the evacuation of Saigon?"

Tom's hands on the barbell visibly tightened. He clenched his jaws together and turned his back completely on Brandon.

The image changed to Jeshri in the kitchen, presumably after work. She looked into the refrigerator and scowled, then checked the freezer. She strode out to the living room where Lizzie and Simon were playing videogames. "Did either of you eat any of my food?" Jeshri said.

Simon looked up and frowned. "Not to my knowledge. I thought that Hot Pocket was mine..."

Jeshri waved that away and looked inquiringly at Lizzie. "Nope," Lizzie said.

"Then that leaves," Jeshri said, a little too dramatically, "Tom or you-know-who."

"Tom would only eat it if it was mind-bogglingly healthy," Simon said, looking back at the screen. "You know who my bet's on."

"I wish like hell we could vote him off the island," Jeshri said, massaging her temples.

Jeshri stomped upstairs and pounded on Brandon's door. He opened it, still wearing his trademark khakis and Oxford buttondown with the collar turned up. "Hey, Jesh," he said.

"Eat your own food, asshole," Jeshri snarled, spun on her heel and started for the stairs.

"Oh, Jesh, don't be like that!" Brandon said, stepping into the hall after her. "I'll make it up to you!"

She turned back around and put out her hand, palm up. "All right," she said, pursing her lips against the anger that I could tell wanted to rip him up one side and down the other. When he stared at her blankly, she pointed into the palm of her hand. "It's called mun-nee," she enunciated. "Green stuff. Bread. Which brings to mind the question of how you managed to eat an entire loaf in an afternoon, but I'm not asking it."

"Naw," he said, with his "aw shucks" grin and back-of-head rub. "Let me take you out to dinner!"

She stared at him disbelievingly. "You think that I would want to go out with you? And that would somehow make up for you eating my food?"

I knew it was going to happen, but it was still shocking. The good ol' boy vanished in an instant. "What the hell, *****?" he shouted, taking a menacing step toward her. "You're such a f***ing ****tease, you were playing 'hard to get' --" he sang the words through his nose -- "so I came after you, and you turn your nose up at dinner with me? You ****ing *****! You're not going to get better **** in this house!"

"Who says I want any **** in this house?" Jeshri shouted back, still standing her ground in the face of the much larger, angry man. "And I wouldn't touch your diseased toothpick with someone else's ten foot pole, you ****ing asshole!"

Tom burst out of his room at this point, but hesitated, staring at the small Indian woman, fists balled, feet planted, glaring up at the red-faced white man.

"You go, girl," I said, tensely leaning toward the television.

Jeshri sighed and looked at her camera. She gave a small, close-lipped smile, and went down the stairs.

I realized that the commercial break we were having was the last one in the show. How the hell were they going to top that one for drama?

More glimpses of life in the house, time passing. In the second floor bathroom, we could see Jeshri's collection of things -- makeup, hair products, skin products -- and a small clutch of soap and shampoo that was apparently Tom's. Simon has a few hair products, a hair pick, and a variety of dental cleaning items -- mouthwashes, different types of floss, an electric toothbrush. The camera shows him brushing his teeth in the morning, shirtless in his loose cotton pajama bottoms, the curved symmetrical scars on his chest showing up brightly against his brown skin.

"Why do I have so many dental products?" he says, apparently repeating a question, appearing baffled. "Because who ever would be intimidated by my flashing fangs if I had fillings in them?"

We see the third floor bathroom, in an astonishing state of disarray -- towels on the floor, shampoo and other bottles heaped on the small counter and in the corners of the shower. Lizzie is staring in at the door, lip curled. We see her a few minutes later, downstairs, saying to Simon and Jeshri, "Guys? Would it be all right if I used this bathroom from now on?"

The other two looked at her in surprise. "You're willing to let him have his own bathroom?" Jeshri said, eyebrows lifted.

Lizzie looked away. "I don't want to have to clean up after him," she said. "I've done enough of that... I mean, it's not like he even seems to try to aim."

"EW!" Simon and Jeshri said in stereo, both of them waving their arms and making faces. "That's fine!" Simon added. "Just don't take forever in the shower in the morning!"

Later, evidently, Lizzie was cooking herself macaroni and cheese from a box. She stood at the stove in her jeans and t-shirt and sneakers, stirring the pasta to make sure it didn't stick to the pan. Brandon strolled into the room behind her.

"I love to see a woman in the kitchen!" he exclaimed with a grin.

She didn't turn, twitch, or in any way acknowledge him.

"I mean, isn't that the way life is supposed to be?" he said, getting another high-five from his cameraman. "The little lady in the kitchen, making dinner, the man coming home from a hard day at work..." He sashayed closer to Lizzie. "Hi, honey, I'm hoooome....!"

I think he put his hand on her lower back, leaning close to her making that kissy fishface some boys think is cute. What I know happened was that she spun like lightning and hit him full in the face with the pot of boiling water.

He reeled back with a shout, then kept shouting, "Ow! ****! ****! ****! Help!" as his skin turned a lovely shade of lobster. I didn't forget he was "modestly" invulnerable.

Lizzie stared at him, jaw slack, and the pot dropped from her hand. The camera didn't linger on her, but I think she dropped it because her hands were shaking too hard to hold it.

The door to the living room burst open, and Simon, Jeshri, and Tom stood there, gawping, as steam rose off Brandon.

Lizzie gave out a little sound like a moan and ran from the room, out the other kitchen door.

The three in the door immediately went after her, Simon bolting ahead, Tom on his heels, and Jeshri at the door when Brandon shouted, "What about me?"

Jeshri paused, looked over her shoulder, and said, "Your buddy, the cameraman, can help you. Once he's finished getting a good shot of your face."

The credits rolled as the door shut behind her.

"Oh, my," I said. "Oh, my, my, my. That girl's got something eating her inside-out."

---

From the Author:
I'm sure that all of them, at this point, are wondering if $25,000 is enough.

Tip o' the photons to my wife, who came up with the idea of the line from The Hobbit for the title.

Wonder City Stories has been nominated for the Rose & Bay Award! Check out all the nominees in all the categories here. I'd love for you to vote for WCS. And please do consider voting for Dave or Lucid (I mean aerynvale or badfaun!) in the patron category.

I'm posting twice weekly during February. Thank you for all your comments! I love them! They are my precious! Yessss, my preccciousss.

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I Have Too Long Lived Like an Anchorite

I sipped my afternoon coffee while watching the last birds going at my birdfeeder on the fake window in my office. The January sunset looked cold as the flock of English sparrows mobbed the feeder for a few precious last carbs to get them through the night. I could see a few houses in the distance, since the deciduous trees had long since dropped their leaves and the conifers were not strategically planted. The computer system was programmed to recognize human figures and delete them from my view, so an army of small children could stampede through my lawn far above and I would never see them. I'd probably feel them, but I wouldn't have the visual cue to lock in on their mental wavelengths.

My email chimed and I glanced over at it. LaShawna. I popped the email open with a click and scanned over it:
Little Ren: Get a load of the new show on PARABI at 8. Got a little brother on, Prof Canis' son. Not live, so good for you. Luv, Big Sis

I clicked the link she attached and said aloud, "You have got to be shitting me."

It was a very stylish page with 5 young people, all college age or a little older, posed semi-heroically against a dark background and the logo that read It's A Wonderful House. A blond white boy with a dazzling smile wearing buttondown and khakis started the lineup. Next was a lovely young woman of East Indian descent, I think, with long wavy black hair and a light Bollywood-style complexion, wearing a very attractive red blouse with loose ruffled three-quarter sleeves that showed a triangle of bare midriff just above the waistband of her tight black jeans. A muscular Asian man with a crewcut posed with his fists on his hips, wearing a skin-hugging white t-shirt and blue jeans. The fourth in line was a dishwater blonde white woman who was done up as the epitome of the farmgirl-next-door, a vaguely Western-styled buttondown and jeans and brown cowboy boots. The last in the lineup was a light-skinned, very pretty black man with a perfect goatee and short, flattop haircut, wearing a tailored dark-blue tuxedo with silver-blue lapels over a white shirt, black cummerbund, and black bowtie.

I stared at the "little brother" for a long time. That was not Malik. I didn't know the other Canis kids, but I knew Malik, since he did an internship for me a couple years ago.

Which meant, of course, that I was going to have to watch the wretched thing. I hate reality shows, not just for the sheer tastelessness of them, but because they're filmed relatively close to time, so I sometimes have trouble with mentally hitching myself to the participants. I usually prefer to watch syndicated shows where all the actors have been dead for decades, when I watch TV at all.

I turned the window off and trudged downstairs, feeling grumpy. I proceeded through my evening routine in an ill humor, and the only thing that salvaged it was that the people I snapped at were robots without significant artificial intelligence. I remembered, however, to take my repression meds with dinner. By the end of dinner, I could feel the slight fuzzing that I perceive as being something like a clear astronaut's helmet of static around my head.

Finally, in my crimson pajamas and black terrycloth bathrobe and fuzzy slippers, I settled in front of the television. "Computer," I said, "please turn on PARABI."

"Of course, Renata," the voice said, and the station came on, though no human figures were visible. It was the end of a news program, so the computer was editing out the newscasters. I was grateful.

When the show began, it had a slick and flashy introduction, with all the participants walking together toward the camera in time with the pop theme music, then stopping and looking to the left. The camera followed their gazes to a big, old Painted Lady Victorian -- probably down in the Staybird section of town -- painted up in bright yellow with highlights of green, red, and electric blue. The title of the show fell in from above and landed on an invisible floor with a shudder and a sound effect.

There was a lot of introduction, with one of those smartass narrators who, you can tell, thinks he's clever with his predictable jokes and puns. They showed us the inside of the house, which had a big modern kitchen, a Victorian dining room with coffered ceilings and wallpaper and stained glass windows, a modern living room in pastel colors, and a recreation room done in jewel tones and full of entertainment systems on the first floor. The second and third floors were the bedrooms and bathrooms. The basement had a workout room, with weight equipment and treadmills and an elliptical trainer, as well as a large modern laundry room.

The smartass talked about the deal: they all were to spend 3 months in the house together. They could go to work, but all their spare time had to be spent in the house, except for one night a week that they had "off". Everything in the house could be filmed as long as the person was "decent" and there was nothing else happening that required privacy. They apparently had signed a contract that broke out all the details of privacy and non-privacy. If they got through 3 months without a major para-level fight that damaged the house, they got $25,000 each.

Then we met the participants.

"This is Brandon deJong!" the narrator pronounced in tones of admiration of the blond, blue-eyed frat boy in another buttondown/khaki combination. The view switched to him in a gray suit and blue tie, hair slicked down, working at a desk. "He's an accountant with Bonafide and Faux Tax Accountants, specialists in paranormal solo and team accounting, and has been there for the past five years. A graduate of Penn State, he discovered his modest superstrength and invulnerability while playing football as a teenager. He has participated in several para-only football leagues over the years."

A young, pretty white woman was apparently selected to interview him. "So, Brandon, what do you do in your spare time?"

Brandon smiled and kept smiling as he shrugged. "I mostly party with my friends."

"How do you think you'll spend your time in the Wonderful House, since your friend-time will be limited?" she said with a similarly camera-ready smile.

He gestured broadly. "I guess I'll have to teach these people how to party right."

"And next up," the narrator said, "is the beautiful Rajeshri Patel!" Patel was dressed in low-rise black bellbottoms with some sort of trim around the bottom and a yellow crop top that it was far too cold to wear. Way to not be stereotypical and racist as hell, PARABI. The view changed to her in a gray uniform jumpsuit and cap. "In her real life, Jeshri is not a film star, but she works for the power company, regulating electricity flow with her para power. She graduated cum laude from UCLA, and does a number of things in her spare time, including scrapbooking and Indian dance."

The interviewer didn't have quite as wide a smile for the other young woman as she'd had for deJong. "So what brought you to Wonder City after living in southern California, Jeshri?"

"The romance of it," she said with a laugh. "Everyone always talks about the opportunities for paras in Wonder City, and besides, it's got all the fabulous para history. Who wouldn't want to be where Jane Liberty held the city alone against Nazi paras? Or where the Damned Yankee was discovered?"

"How has Wonder City lived up to its legend?" the interviewer said.

"Very well, thank you," Patel said with a toss of her head. "I enjoy being an important part of Wonder City and its infrastructure. I get to see the most amazing people all the time. I really feel like I'm part of making more history."

After the commercial break, we met, "Tom Nguyen! He makes his living as a long-haul truck driver because his para power is being able to stay awake for a week without any ill effects. To be part of the Wonderful House, he's taken up driving local deliveries and short runs so as to maximize his time at the House."

The interviewer fluttered her eyelashes at Nguyen. "Where did you go to college, Tom?"

He didn't have a camera-ready smile or a knack with words. "Here and there. Got my bachelor's finally at Wonder City U." I wondered how he'd gotten onto the show. When he shifted around in his tight black t-shirt and blue jeans, it became obvious: he's a bodybuilder. With his broad cheekbones and flawless skin, he clearly looked very good on screen tests.

"What do you do when you're not driving?" she asked.

"I work out," he said. "I eat and sleep and whatever. I mean, what do normal people do?"

"Next up is the girl known only as Tin Lizzie," the narrator said. "She wouldn't give us her last name, or anything much about her background. We know she was a farmgirl, and we know that her para power is absorbing energy. Hopefully, she and Jeshri will get along!"

"Why won't you give out your real name?" the interviewer asked.

Tin Lizzie was, as shown on the website, a plain-pretty dishwater blonde white-girl-next-door. She'd lost the Western styling, though, and was presented in t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. She offered up a sheepish grin. "My family is shy, and if I do something stupid, I don't want to embarrass them."

The interviewer laughed falsely. "Well, I'm sure they appreciate it. What do you do for a living?"

"Oh," Tin Lizzie said, laughing and then covering her mouth. "I work at the Great Scot Coffeehouse with Simon."

"Simon Canis is our fifth participant!" the narrator declared, and a picture of the young black man appeared. He was still very snappily dressed, in what looked like black patent leather shoes, black trousers, a dark blue dress shirt, and a silver tie. "He's the son of Professor Canis, and was a member of the Puppy Patrol years ago. A graduate of Wonder City U, he's working in the Great Scot while he decides what he wants to do for a living."

I could see immediately that there was something wrong with the interviewer's body language, but I couldn't decide what it was. She gave him about the same smile wattage as she gave Jeshri. "Some of our viewers who followed the Puppy Patrol will wonder which one you were, Simon, since you changed your name."

That gave me some pause. He still didn't look like Malik.

Simon gave her a sleepy, easy smile and nodded. "Well, I was the one in the black uniform -- the one that didn't talk much. My sister Ivy and my brother Malik did most of the talking, after all."

But Professor Canis only had one son...

Then I realized -- the interviewer was leaning away from Simon. It was very slight, and very professionally covered, but it was there.

"So, I guess there's something that most of our viewers will realize about you pretty quickly," the interviewer said, just a little stiffly.

Simon's smile broadened. He seemed to be enjoying the interviewer's discomfort. "I'm sure that everyone out there with a computer can look it up on Parapedia, Cynthia. I wouldn't want to insult anyone's intelligence by spelling it out."

Oh, Simon, I thought. You are definitely headed for trouble. And damn me if I'm not going to watch every week while you get yourself into it.

---

From the Author:
I'm posting twice weekly during January thanks to the response! If you like this twice-weekly thing, I'm doing it again in January: if January's posts draw 50 comments total, I'll post twice weekly through February too. As before, if you provide a comment bonanza, I'll extend appropriately.


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