Chapter Sixteen

Hero's Call: Chapter Sixteen

Milo had never pedaled his bike so hard in all his life. Much of that had to do with the fact that his now genetically enhanced body could move quicker than his old body ever could. Had there been any cars on his route, they would have been baffled by the young man on a mountain bike that was leaving them in his dust. He didn’t think about being discrete with his newfound strength and abilities. His spirits were so high he couldn’t have kept them in check even if he had wanted to. The best Milo could do was taking a back way to meet Bill and Cali and hope he didn’t pass anyone on his way. Luckily, the roads were more or less deserted.

Milo had told Bill to get Calliope and come to the small copse of trees that sat in the empty field behind the Pizza Hut. They had discovered the tiny contingent of trees one day when walking to have some lunch on a half day of school. There was an opening just big enough for three kids to fit through to have a little fun. The center of the copse was fairly well open to allow for them to do whatever they wished and not be completely exposed to any passers-by, although given the location of their secret hideout, there weren’t many people prone to pass by. That had been some years before when the three friends were much younger. Now, as their ages and bodies rapidly approached adulthood, it was a little more difficult for them to get in and out, but that never really stopped them from doing so.

Milo skidded his bike to a halt in the yellowing grass that surrounded the thicket, dirt flying in his wake. He grossly misjudged his speed in relation to his distance when applying the handbrakes. The already worn break mechanism did what it could, but only slowed Milo’s forward momentum down so much before it snapped free from the bike frame. Milo tried to put his feet down to help slow his progress, but it was too late. His front tire crushed into a fallen tree trunk, caving in the once perfect circle, and sent Milo headlong into the dense collection of trees. He was surprised to find that he felt next to no pain as he shot through the weak, low-hanging branches and collided with the sturdy trunk of an ash tree.

Laughing hysterically, Milo picked himself up and brushed himself off. There were no scratches he could see on any of his skin that was exposed. A quick once over of the rest of his body showed no real harm done. The skin on his shoulder was a little tender from the collision, but the pain was rapidly receding as his Hero Gene worked quickly to heal him. Milo tromped back through the trees to inspect the damage to his bike. The front wheel was obliterated as was a small part of the frame. There was no way of repairing damage that extensive. His parents wouldn’t be happy when they saw the mangled remains of the bike he’d begged them ceaselessly for only a year previously. The upside was that he was unharmed, but he didn’t think his parents would find that a comfort now that he was a Hero.

Milo let the bike drop to the ground and walked a quarter of the way around the copse of trees to the only opening that had ever allowed them inside. He knew neither Bill nor Cali had arrived because either of them would have come running at the commotion of his accident. Once he was inside the thicket, Milo couldn’t help but notice how eerily quiet it was. They’d never really spent any time there at night and a chill started creeping up Milo’s spine as he thought about all the horror movies that had come unbidden to his mind. A little more than a week prior, Milo’s imagination would have had him pacing nervously about and jumping at any little noise until Bill and Cali finally showed up. Now that he was the first Hero to walk the earth in nearly half a century, he laughed at the thought of a hockey mask-wearing, machete-wielding maniac attacking him.

Milo only had to wait a little over five minutes before he heard the tell-tale sound of bike tires tearing through the grass and coming to a stop. The sound was coming from the opposite direction that Milo himself had come, but he figured they would have taken a more direct route and only traveling at a fraction of the speed. It suddenly struck him as a relief that his friends had approached a different way as his damaged bike lay in the open and would only create panic among them, especially Cali. Their voices could be heard clearly as they got off their bikes and made their way over to the entrance of the clearing.

“Is Milo here yet?” Cali asked, a hint of annoyance in her voice.

“How am I supposed to know, Jen?” Bill answered, clearly annoyed at Cali’s annoyance. “Do you see his bike anywhere?”

Milo couldn’t see them clearly through the trees but he could hear their footsteps stop.

“I can’t be out here all night,” complained Cali. “I have to be back before my parents get back or I’ll be grounded for a month.”

“No one forced you to come, Calliope,” countered Bill.

Cali scoff was clearly audible. “Yes they did. You forced me to come! And don’t call me Calliope.”

“Just relax,” Bill said, changing his tone to the soothing timbre that always seemed to level Cali out. “Milo asked us both to come. He said it was important and that we both had to be here. I know you’re on a time crunch, but Milo won’t let you get in trouble, you know that. Let’s just go inside and wait for him. We’ll give him five minutes. If he doesn’t turn up, you can split and I’ll tell him where you are. You didn’t hear his voice. This is important. I know you won’t regret hearing him out.” There was a long pause in which neither one of them spoke or moved. Finally, Bill said, “Fair enough?”

Cali sighed heavily. “He’s got five minutes.”

She turned on her heels and marched toward the entrance with Bill hurriedly following behind her. Milo realized that he’d been eavesdropping without even thinking about it and knew he was about to be caught in the act. His mind frantically tried to come up with a story that would either of them would believe about how he managed to get there before them and not hear a word they’d said. He was drawing a blank. Milo had never been terribly good at lying under pressure. He decided the only way to avoid it was to pretend like nothing happened and change the subject immediately. He leaned against a nearby tree, affecting a casual stance.

“What took you guys so long?” he said to Bill and Cali as they emerged into the clearing. “I thought I was going to be here all night.”

“Milo,” Cali said, shock clear on her face. “How long have you been here? We didn’t see your bike.”

Milo shrugged. “Got here just before you did.”

Bill and Cali looked at each other skeptically. There was a brief, unspoken exchange between them which Calliope apparently won.

“What’s going on, Milo,” she said, taking the lead. “I can’t be out long.”

Milo found himself at a loss of words. How does one actually go about telling their best friends that they can shoot green lasers out of their eyes and heal almost instantly? It wasn’t exactly a conversation people had every day, Milo knew. He doubted all those speeches that survived decades, centuries started with a few mumbled words and shuffling feet.

“I’m the one that put Devon in the hospital,” he said flatly, surprising even himself. The cat had rocket-propelled itself out of the bag now. Bill’s jaw dropped and fire burned in Cali’s eyes.

“You did what?” she said, her voice just below a shout.

“Holy crap,” Bill added.

“Hold on,” said Milo, recovering. “That came out wrong. It was an accident.”

Milo launched into the story of what had happened between him and Devon a week earlier. As the words poured out of him, Bill and Cali’s expressions slowly changed. Bill’s moved from shock to excitement, which Milo expected. Cali’s went from anger to terror, which Milo didn’t quite anticipate. The incident, his changing, it was historic. He didn’t want her to be afraid of him. She was his friend, and if he was being quite frank, Cali was the only thing that kept him in check. She was the voice or reason, the logical point of view. If she wasn’t around, Milo had no idea how bad thing between him and Devon would have gotten. He’d had a lot worse ideas in the past that Cali outright squashed before he barely finished speaking. He needed her now more than ever.

“So,” he said after he’d finished telling them about the An’Fari that he’d spoken with less than an hour before, “are you mad?”

The question was directed more at Calliope than Bill, but Milo’s oldest friend didn’t even seem to notice Cali’s demeanor. He was too wrapped up in the news that his best friend was now a Hero.

“Are you kidding?” he laughed. “You’re a freaking Hero, Milo. That’s wicked boss. Shoot some lasers at something.”

“It doesn’t really work like that,” answered Milo, though he didn’t take his eyes off of Cali as she moved to the edge of the clearing. Her back faced them like a brick wall.

Bill stepped over to Milo and Milo pulled his attention away from Cali to his other friend.

“What do you mean?” asked Bill.

Milo shrugged noncommittally. “I don’t know, man. That just kind of happened. I haven’t really tried to do it again, you know, considering the outcome.”

Bill looked at him thoughtfully. “Yeah, I get that. Hell of a thing.”

A moment of silence descended over the three friends. Cali remained still as a statue while Milo and Bill shifted uncomfortably. Milo was dying for her to speak. He knew she was wrestling with her emotions. She’d want to tell someone what happened. She couldn’t deny that it was the right thing to do. But Milo was her friend and she didn’t want to betray that relationship.

The minutes passed as an agonizing eternity. He wanted Cali to say everything was fine. She’d want him to go to the cops, of course, but as long as he came clean thing between them would be just fine. After too many miserable minutes passed, all he wanted to hear was something. He just wanted her to speak. Tell him he was a terrible person, that she never wanted to speak to him. It didn’t matter as long as she spoke. That’s all he wanted. Just a single word.

  Without warning, the deafening silence was broken by the sharp crack of splitting wood followed closely by Milo screaming which was followed, in turn, by Bill laughing like a maniac. Both Milo and Cali rounded on Bill to find him smiling widely and holding the splintered remains of a tree branch thicker than a baseball bat. The rest of the branch had shattered harmlessly across Milo’s shoulders.

“What the hell, Bill?” Milo shouted. His heart was racing from the shock.

“Oh boy,” Bill said, the grin quickly disappearing from his face. “Did I hurt you?”

Milo did a mental check of his body. It was fine.

“Well, no,” he answered. “Just startled me is all.”

Bill sighed his relief. “Okay, good. Want to try it again?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Milo chided him. “Grab something bigger this time.”

They laughed and Bill began looking for something even sturdier to smash Milo with. When they had settled on a log Bill could just barely hold, Milo stood on one side of the clearing and squared his chest to Bill, telling him to get a running start and put all his force into it this time. Bill let out his best representation of a battle cry and ran full steam across the clearing, the log reared back like he was going to bat for the Cleveland Indians. In mid-swing, the branch was yanked out of Bill’s hands like it was nothing more than a giant feather and Bill stumbled into Milo who caught him effortlessly. They both turned to find Cali holding the log in one hand without the slightest effort on her part.

“Enough, you two,” she shouted. “It’s like I’m babysitting sometimes with you two. Can’t you guys grow up for once and act like adults?” She took the branch in both hands, snapped it in half like a tooth pick, and tossed the pieces aside in anger. “Well?” she urged. Bill and Milo were looking at her with a mixture of awe and terror. Neither could find the words to answer her question whether they had an answer or not.

“Um…Cali?” Bill said timidly.

“What?” she spat back.

“You’re, um…floating,” Bill said, pointing to the ground at her feet.

The three of them followed Bill’s direction. He was right. Instead of having her feet firmly planted on the ground, Calliope was standing on thin air six inches above the leaf-strewn ground.

“I think she’s got you beat, Milo old buddy,” Bill said out of the corner of his mouth.

“Yeah,” Milo agreed. “Tell me about it.”