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"Ms. Ballister? It's
time," the new nurse said.
It was her
name, the one she was born with. Melissa Ballister,
daughter of an accounting firm manager and a boutique clerk,
the name of the little girl with black pig-tails on the
playground of her memory. Her other name, Ball Lightning,
would come later.
"Ms.
Ballister, it's time to go inside for the night."
She cocked
her head, peering at the young brunette who had started
working the night shift last week.
"P-Please,"
Melissa stammered, "a-a-a few mo-re moments." The garden was
her refuge, her hiding place, especially at night under the
stars.
The nurse
frowned. "I'm sorry, Ms. Ballister--"
Melissa
nodded, allowing the nurse to wheel her back to the building
without further protest. Ensconced in the small room she
called home, she sighed. Her existence had narrowed to
this: A ten foot by ten foot dorm in a government run
medical facility.
She allowed
the nurse to help her change into her flannel night
clothes. Her nearly useless left arm and leg made
everything she did a chore and sometimes -- sometimes she
wanted the memory of being undressed, never mind that the
young woman was going to immediately stuff her into a
nightgown.
Eventually,
even her closest friends stopped coming to visit. Perhaps
it was the cold, sterile rooms. Perhaps it was the milling
zombie-like resident patients. Perhaps the repressive
reminder of mortally she represented was too much for them
to bear.
She had
flown once, flown higher than all the birds, basked in the
feel of the wind as it washed over her skin. She had been
as a god of the ancients in those days: loved and feared,
misunderstood by those she had sworn to protect.
She was not
a god, of course: Merely a mortal with a bit more to her
existence, and as with any high-performance athlete, the
falls came harder, the injuries more severe. She had been
one of the highest performing athletes of all.
No longer,
though.
Now she
would spend a few lingering years in whatever hospitals and
homes the government pleased to pay for, doing whatever the
doctors and nurses and administrators deemed prudent.
She closed
her eyes and remembered the thrill of a steep dive, swooping
in at the last moment to save some hapless civilian from
certain death or to defend her teammates in battle. Now she
couldn't even rescue a kitten stuck up a tree.
She barely
felt the needle slide into her arm. Barely--but she
did--and thanked a God she had stopped believing in for the
darkness the drugs would bring.
Come
morning, she was in no hurry to dress and leave her room.
No callers came to visit her anymore, no mail arrived from
former fans or a family who had long ago divorced themselves
from her life; a life they had vehemently disapproved of.
She rose, pulled on a sweater and faded blue jeans, ran a
comb absently through her short black hair, and shuffled to
the cafeteria assisted by her walker, which was as close to
moving under her own power as she could manage. She sat
staring down at her breakfast, the tasteless food of no
interest to her.
Life as a
Super was not at all like the comics. They might be able
manipulate matter, or run at high speeds, or -- as she had
-- become a glowing, flying ball of electrical energy, but
that was where the similarities ended. All Supers were
registered, and the strongest were recruited to work for the
government, trained to act as a special paramilitary force.
They were few, and fragile in human ways. She had lost
friends to bullets, to accidents, to attempts at being a
hero instead of a soldier.
"Ms.
Ballister?" a male voice said.
She tried
to look up, but her head felt heavy and she was tired.
"Y-Yes?" she said to the voice.
A hand,
firm and male, touched her arm. The new orderly, she
realized. She shivered: It had been so long since a man had
touched her, other than to administer drugs or examine her
body for further damage and decay.
"I just
wanted to say... to say thank you."
She could
not stop the tears.
They had
flown to Chicago to battle a giant mecha-bot, the latest
technological terror unleashed by... She was never sure
which rogue Super Villain-wanna-be it was. Dr. Maleficent?
The Mad Machinist?
With the
rise of super-powered mortals came those who were good, and
those who were evil, and all the shades of grey between.
Each had their own reasons for the path they walked, the
same as everyone else in the world.
For Melissa
Ballister, aka Ball Lightning, it was a nice secure paycheck
with the added incentive of government benefits. She
supposed that was why she had finally joined. She thought
she would look good in the form-fitting uniform, as well.
The fan mail she received confirmed it. For six years, her
squad of Supers protected the people of the United States.
The moment
it all crashed down was frozen in her mind forever.
She had
flown lazy circles around the demolished mechanical monster,
directing rescue workers to the injured civilians who had
not managed to flee. Sweeping the perimeter of the
battleground one last time, she had turned back to her team.
Something
simply -- came loose in her head. She hovered for a few
seconds, paralyzed and puzzled. Had she missed a threat?
Where they under attack again? She tried to shout a warning
to her teammates, but no words sounded from suddenly numb
lips.
Her powers
failed. She flipped over in the air and plunged earthward
as the numbness spread along the left side of her body,
catching a glimpse of Roger the Rocket dashing to intercept
her before darkness took her and she knew no more.
A stroke.
An
intracranial hemorrhage, to be more specific.
Days and
weeks in the hospital blurred together, followed by months
of therapy, physical and mental, but she never regained much
mobility or strength in her left side. She could amble
about with the aid of a walker until she tired, and then she
needed her wheelchair. Speech was a chore and even holding
a focused thought could be difficult at times.
She would
never fly again, never charge her body and glow with the
blue-white electric fury of power. Whatever had made her
special was gone.
They had
come at first: Her teammates, her friends, her lover. They
had wished her a speedy recover, gifted her with flowers and
fruits and candies. She could see the truth, though, in
their eyes. Saw the fear and revulsion at her half-frozen
face and slurred speech. They stopped coming, soon enough.
She dreamed
of it, sometimes. Dreamed of flying as high as she could
before lack of oxygen took her, dreamed of pressing onward
through the pain and blurry vision, reaching ever upward for
the bright stars beyond the atmosphere, reaching for them
like poor Icarus, until she too lost her wings and
plummeted.
That would
have been kinder, she thought upon waking.
The nursing
staff still keeps a close watch on her, though, because
sometimes she forgets she can no long fly.
The night
nurse knelt next to her wheelchair. "Ms. Ballister, we have
to go in now."
"Me—liss-a,"
she croaks out, speaking her own name as if it were in a
foreign tongue she barely understands.
The nurse
smiles, touches her arm lightly. "And I am Cindy Summers,
at least when Nurse Montgomery isn't around."
Melissa
gives the woman her lopsided smile, and the two women become
fast companions in their dislike of the Nursing Supervisor.
That night
she convinces Cindy to sit with her, and to visit between
rounds. They talk in those few stolen moments, until
Cindy's shift ends. Cindy does not give her the drugs, but
she sleeps peacefully anyway.
She detests
the television the most, which is why she hates Nursing
Supervisor Montgomery. Nurse Montgomery leaves the
television in the lounge on all the time and always on the
Cable News Network. Nurse Montgomery makes everyone stay in
the lounge when she is on duty.
Sometimes
she sees her old team on the screen giving a press
conference, doing a public service announcement, or engaged
in product endorsements. The worst is the live coverage of
their exploits. She remembers the feel of it under her
skin, the power -- the electricity -- she wants to rise up
from her wheelchair and join them. She misses the moment
between breaths when life and death hangs in the balance.
Sometimes
she hates them, especially the woman who replaced her. She
wonders what other roles, once hers, the red-haired woman
now fills. Has she become Roger's new lover as well? Does
he place his lips on the newcomer in that spot, the one that
always made her arch and hiss with pleasure?
Wondering
could drive her mad, if she let it.
Some nights
she begs Cindy for her drugs. The young nurse usually
complies, but only with half the dose, and eventually with
only a quarter.
"Would you
go back to it, if you could?"
Melissa
opens her eyes, having been lulled to restfulness by the
steady heartbeat in her ear and the gently fingers in her
hair. Cindy, on her day off, had come to the center to
visit Melissa. They lay together on the grass in a secluded
corner of the medical center's campus, away from the
security cameras and fence. They had moved from friends to
something more -- though not quite lovers -- in the month
since their first talk.
"Yes,"
Melissa murmurs, reveling in her clear if slow speech. "In
an instant. It is -- all I have ever known." She feels the
nurse tense and sits up, looking down at the younger woman.
With the gradual withdrawal from the drugs came the return
of her mind, and she had begun to notice little oddities,
things that did not add up. "What?"
"Nurse
Montgomery scheduled herself for the overnight shift. Do
not allow her to give you an injection of any kind."
She stares
at Cindy for several moments before carefully nodding her
head. "Is this the reason you came today?" Melissa asks.
In response
the women reaches up and wraps her arms around Melissa's
neck, pulling her back down to the grass with a light
laugh. Later, Melissa guides her to the place Roger once
placed his lips.
She settles
on her side with her eyes half open, letting them adjust to
the darkness. She might not be a Super anymore, but she
remembers now, remembers more than just the sorrow of loss,
and is ready to cast away the chains that have held her life
in stasis since that unfortunate day.
The door
opens, and a slit of light, just enough for the other person
to see what they are about, shines into the room. She
waits until the rustle of clothes and soft exhales of breath
draw close to her bedside before she opens her eyes and
reaches out with a her strong right hand to grip the wrist
of the one holding the syringe.
"Why?"
The hard,
tired face of the Nursing Supervisor peers back at her.
"Because you know things. Because you wouldn't be the first
of your kind to turn traitor after a disabling injury.
Because you might manifest your powers again and not be able
to control them, and your kind needs to be controlled." She
practically spits the last word.
Melissa
nods her understanding. "So, I was kept drugged and
dependant because someone in authority fear what I might
become, and deemed it prudent to -- neutralize me. Why not
just kill me?"
"Because
Supers breed true and your eggs are perfectly healthy,"
Nurse Montgomery says. She twists and pulls, breaking
Melissa's hold. For a moment the nurse's eyes take on a
triumphant expression as she backs away from the bed, then
they dull and fade as she falls to the floor.
"I'm
sorry," Melissa says, taking the nurse's identification,
removing the syringe from the woman's leg and dressing in
the woman's clothes.
She slowly
walks out of the medical center, unchallenged and unremarked
upon, stopping only to use the staff phone and place a call.
She limps a
few blocks before settling on the curb, too tired to go on
without her walker or wheelchair, the adrenaline and force
of will that carried her fading away.
Tomorrow
they will send someone to kill her. She knows her actions
tonight will solidify in their minds that she had become the
very thing they fear, and they might be right. Perhaps the
government will even do her the honor of sending her old
teammates.
The car
pulls up and the passenger side door opens. She climbs in,
securing her seatbelt and closing the door before turning to
smile at her new lover.
Her old
team will need to find her first. She knows their playbook,
and she also knows where her old enemies dwell, those that
have escaped or otherwise managed to stay at large. Perhaps
one will offer her sanctuary here in her most desperate hour
in exchange for what she knows. And if she has walked back
into a life she cannot escape, at least this prison is of
her own choosing.
She takes
her lover's hand as the car roars away from the curb, into
the night. They both laugh and--for a moment--she is
flying. |
