H.E.R.O. - Rise and Fall (4 page)

“Possibly.  Major league pitchers can hit something like 100 mph, but that’s at a horizontal angle.  Throwing up will be harder, and we don’t have the arm of a pitcher.”

“Yeah.  So it’s possible I could get it up twenty or thirty miles before it would start falling again?”

“Whoa.  Yeah.  That’d be a hell of a throw in football.”

Nick asked, “How far is it to hit freefall?”

“A few hundred miles in the space station, but since it is moving it creates more freefall if I’m thinking right.”

“Oh.  So you can’t just get a hundred miles up and float away from the planet?”

“No.  But if something had a rocket on it and got to that height, it would only need enough fuel to move around once up there, not the massive amount to leave orbit in a heavy vehicle.”

“Okay.  So far you can make something weightless for an hour, and you can give it localized gravity.  You pulled the pillow to you, how far away can you do that?”

I looked about thirty feet out and tried pulling a rock to me.  I held my hand out to it and the rock flew over to me, slapping into my hand with quite a bit of force.  I rubbed my hand from the sting.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, just a sting, and it’s fading already.”

“Nice.  Try one double the distance.”

I focused again on another rock and it also flew to me.  This time I made sure to absorb the impact better by moving my arm with the rock’s motion.  Another try let me grab one perhaps one hundred feet away, but I failed to grab any further out.

I said, “They claimed that I’m a lot tougher than a normal person now.  I suppose I can try the John Carter of Mars thing.”

“You are going to reduce the gravity on yourself?”

“Yeah, but I’m not going to totally remove it, I don’t want to float off.”

“Good idea.”

“Oh, I suppose I should figure out how far I can jump first.”

“Go for it.”

I marked a line on the ground and tried jumping several times.  From a standing jump I was able leap about fifteen feet.

I looked at Nick, “What’s the world record on that?”

He did a search on his tablet and said, “For non supers it is just under twelve feet.”

“Nice.  Time to lighten the body.”  I concentrated on myself, and felt the change.  A tap down of my foot brought me up a foot, and I fell much slower than normal.

Nick said, “That looks right, try a tiny jump first, just in case.”

“Right.”  I stood behind my line and tried a half-hearted jump.  I tripled my previous jumps.

As I walked back Nick said, “That’s kick ass – you almost look like you are moon walking.  Now try a real one.”

I put real effort behind the next jump, and easily jumped fifty feet.  I believe a running jump took me about three hundred feet.  It was pretty cool seeing the ground slowly move away from me, and then slowly come back toward me as I jumped.

When I leapt back Nick asked, “Is that your limit?”

“At this, well … gravity.    I just need to fine-tune how low I go on gravity and I’ll be able to jump a lot further.”

“Can I try?”

“Sure.  Take it easy at first though.”  I concentrated on Nick and dialed him down on gravity effects.

His leaps were about a quarter of mine in distance, but he didn’t have many problems landing.

He said, “You must be stronger than I am.”

“Yeah, they said all supers are pretty strong.  Let’s find some rocks, see if I can get a ratio.”

We wandered around testing rocks until Nick had problems lifting one – we figured it must weigh eighty pounds.  It felt light to me, however.

I said, “I should get a one-day gym membership to test this out, it would be a lot more precise.”

“Not a problem, wait until then.  What’s next to test?  Can you alter the general gravity of a region, or sphere around you?”

“Let me try.  I’ll make it weightless first if I can just to prevent crushing everything.  Stand back away though....”

Nick walked about fifty feet away, but followed me at that distance as I moved into an area with some trees and brush.  I concentrated on spreading a field of low gravity.  Seconds later the brush, tree limbs and grass lifted upward slightly.  It appeared to be a field about thirty feet in diameter.

Nick slowly closed our distance until he was a short distance outside my range, picked up a rock, and tossed the rock into the field.  I'd have expected it to move perhaps six or ten feet from the throw, but it glided through the field nearly to the other side before it touched the ground.

I put more effort into the field and called out, "Again!"

He picked up another rock, gently tossed it and this time it didn't even change its direction until it had gone through the entire field.  He got brave and bounce-stepped into the field.

Nick slowly flew through the air from my left to my right.  His feet stayed a foot or so above the ground until he passed through the edge of the field on the far side.  As with the rocks, he quickly fell down to the ground under normal gravity.

He looked back at me and said, "That was pretty awesome.  How about I move further away and you crank it the other direction?"

"Got it.  Dropping this field."  I stopped concentrating on it and the field immediately dropped.  I felt the change in the local gravity of the area.  After taking a few deep breaths I tried increasing the normal gravity in the local area as much as possible.

In seconds everything bent down low to the ground, tree limbs hung at sharp angles, and leaves drooped directly down toward the earth.  It almost appeared as though a giant foot had stepped on all the grass.

Nick said, "Wow, your eyes are really glowing now."

I dropped the field and a lot of the plants sprung back to their normal position - but many appeared damaged and didn't come off the ground at all.

He asked, "How quickly can you drop that?"

"It was immediate - as soon as I stopped concentrating the gravity went back to normal."

"Let's try again over there, but this time see if you can increase gravity slowly."

"Sure."  We walked over to another area.

He said, "I'm going to stay in your field, if I fall to the ground drop the field, okay?"

"Got it."

I began ramping up the field again.  It felt to me like I was mentally rotating the volume dial on a stereo.

Nick stood his ground for a few seconds, but I saw his facial expression change and he began to grit his teeth and put serious effort into remaining upright.  Five more seconds and he looked about ready to fall, and then he did.  I immediately dropped the field.

He coughed a few times and said, "Wow.  It gets harder to breath, and it's like someone was adding weights onto my shirt every second.  You were taking it slow?"

I nodded. 
Man, I can’t wait to use this on someone I don’t like.

"I think I'll skip a test where you shoot it up fast, then."

"One more test of that, I want to see how fast I can massively increase the gravity."

I walked to another fresh area of plants and cranked up the field as fast as I could.  Everything drooped immediately.  Nick threw a few rocks at the field and they fell directly to the ground almost instantly upon crossing the border.  A squirrel fell out of a nearby tree - I laughed as it squirmed under the far greater weight.

I went back to throwing rocks that had gravity decreased on them, playing with the fields, and testing lowering the gravity just on Nick and I for the next few hours with similar results.  I could tell that having powers was going to be a lot of fun.

Nick asked, “So do you plan to become a superhero?”

“Nah, I’m not big on following the rules that would require.”

“So what’s your plan with it then?”

“Hmm, I need to figure out some way to make a lot of money with it.  Do you suppose that N.A.S.A. would be willing to pay to have me get stuff into orbit?”

“If you can keep something light it wouldn’t take fuel, that alone would save millions of dollars.  At least for the portion of the trip to get up there.”

“I don’t think they would do it on blind faith, though.  I need to find a way to test making something weightless and see how high I can get it.  Hobby rockets have altimeters you can buy for them, that would probably work.”

I felt wore down by mid-day.  I suspected that the more I used my powers, the more fatigued I became.  We drove back to my place and I let Nick know that I’d give him a call tomorrow to continue our tests.  Then I ate and took a long nap in the afternoon.

Chapter 4 - Action!

Diva's Viewpoint

I drove around for an hour.  Two events came up on the phone, but both were about six miles away in the city, and showed that someone else took them before I drove even remotely close.

Being a super hero was beginning to bore me.  Finally I spotted some stores that looked trendy and stopped to do some shopping for a while.

I was looking through the mini-skirts when another crime call came in.  I almost skipped looking at it, but glanced at the phone for the heck of it.  It was only two miles away!

I threw the skirt on the rack and ran out the door screaming, "Yeaaahhhhh!!!!!"  I pushed the accept button as I rushed to my car.

I drove like a maniac on the way, fortunately it wasn't a downtown area or the traffic would have been a nightmare.  Within a few minutes I reached the building - it was a house, not unlike my own, although it was a smaller, quaint neighborhood.

A big hole was in one wall, with parts and stuff all over the ground outside. 
Oh!  A fight must be going on inside!

In moments I stopped the car and ran up to the house.  The heels made running slightly slower, although I weighed so little that I could run on my toes and it didn't bother me at all.

I went to knock on the front door, but my first knock broke the door's handle assembly and it flew open and smashed against the inside wall.  I shrugged and ran in.

A thumping noise from the left of me made me take the nearest hallway, and I saw a metal robot walk out of a doorway.  It stopped and looked at me for a moment.

It had strange eyes for a robot, but I ignored that as I kicked it in the stomach. 
I swear that thing almost looked surprised before I hit it.
  It flew back into and through the wall behind it, causing a great crashing noise as it, house parts, and stuff from shelves and furniture all got smashed and flew apart.

I yelled and pumped my fist, "Hah!  Take that robot criminal!"

A woman's voice yelled from the room with the robot, "What the hell?"

I ran in, stepping through the big hole in the wall.  "I'll save you from the robot!"

The robot stood back up just as I made it through the wall.  Dang, they make them tough, it barely looked dented.

Then I heard the woman's voice say, "Get the hell out of my house!"  The only odd thing is that the robot's mouth was saying it! 
It must have had a way of recording someone's voice....

I pointed at the robot and said, "Give up now, robot!"

It looked like it snarled at me - the thing actually had teeth in its mouth - and said, "I'm
not
a damn robot!"

Now that couldn't be true.  It sure walked at me like it meant business.  It kicked aside the remnants of a cabinet and stepped up to me.

It tried to punch me, but I was quick like a boxer and dodged it.  Then I punched back at it and hit it in the chest.  It ruined the outside wall on the side of the house as it went through that wall and the outside siding. 
Robots have boobs?  Did I just hit a robot boob?  Who builds one like that?
 
Who builds them in the first place, this is like science fiction or something!  Being a super hero is exciting after all!

I was climbing through the new hole in the outer wall when it showed up right next to me and punched me in the stomach.  My ex-boyfriend was a real scumbag, and hit me a few times.  It felt kind of like that, except that the robot smashed me back into the house, through at least one wall, perhaps two.  Going through the walls didn't seem to hurt much, but the punch really hurt.

I climbed back to my feet as I heard the robot stomping heavily through the house toward me.  I pulled my dress up a bit at the top and tightened my stomach.  It hurt a bit, but not as bad as I would have thought.

It again tried to swing at me when it showed up; although this time I moved my head barely out of the way in time.  Then I punched it back in the face.  The metal made an odd thudding noise as I hit it, and its head snapped back.

It looked back and me and grabbed my right wrist.  It yanked me forward with unbelievable strength and punched me in the right shoulder.  It didn't release my wrist, and yanked me forward again and with yet another punch slugged me again.

I don't even know how it did it, but when it yanked me forward one more time it somehow got behind me, wrapped both arms under mine and locked its hands behind my neck.  While I struggled with it, it wrapped both legs around me, put its feet between my legs and pulled my legs out so I couldn't even move.  I lay there with my arms and legs splayed out like some kind of stuffed animal.  This thing was so strong I couldn't move at all. 
I thought I was a brick?  Are robots tougher than bricks?
  I tried to struggle, but it was far stronger than I was.

There was movement ahead of me and a blonde man in a white and blue costume and wearing a blue visor came walking around the corner.  I knew he was one of those, err, us heroes.

He stopped at the sight of us and smiled.  "I'm Psycom, what's going on here?"

I thought about what to say when the robot said, "I have no idea who this chick is, but she just busted into my house and attacked me!"

I said, "I'm a super hero!"

Psycom took out his cell phone and snapped a photo of us. 
Great, that'll be on the internet soon....
  He pushed a few buttons and said, "Hmm, she actually is a H.E.R.O.  Name of Diva, joined H.E.R.O. just today?"

I squeaked out, "Yeah.  But I got the call to come look at a fight going on here."