For me, it was a usual day. Of course, that’s how it always starts for me. Wake up early, roll out of my bed, provided to me by the government. It’s not a bad bed, either. Taxpayers wouldn’t be happy if they found out how nice my digs were, even knowing what I’ve done to save the country. Even more so if they know exactly what I’ve done to save the country. That being said, being a part of the secret and elite Division S of the Counterterrorism Strike Force had some great perks, like the housing.
Taxpayers know who I am, to an extent. They know the glitzy side of the story, the carefully crafted and painstakingly maintained public face of Heatwave and the carefully crafted and painstakingly maintained public story of her achievements. For every one of those public achievements where everybody feels good about having somebody like me swoop in seemingly out of nowhere and save the day, there are reams and reams of paper heavily redacted upon any Freedom of Information request. For example, there is no Division S of the Counterterrorism Strike Force.
My classy living situation is a perk, and a compromise. I live on what my coworker Carl calls “The Subtle Compound”. It isn’t just me, either. Carl lives there, along with everybody else in Division S. Satellite photos won’t show a compound out in the desert. You won’t even know you stumbled on a high-security compound for a secret division of a shadowy government organization that secretly backs the country’s superheroes. It looks like a back-alley piece of property in the warehouse district out by the piers. Instead of a warehouse, though, it has suites the envy of the five-star hotels and penthouses located just two miles away in the upper downtown. It has much sturdier walls, and any approach is carefully designed to discourage snooping before any prying eyes would see their first roll of razor-wire fence or security checkpoints.
I start off every day as a normal day. Roll out of bed, turn off the alarm, work out, get dressed. Make coffee my way. I can boil water with my bare hands faster than any kitchen appliance on the market. It’s a mental exercise more than anything. Sheila, better known as Fury, got me started on it. It’s easy for me to explode the kettle by heating the water so fast the steam can’t escape. It’s difficult to do small things with my power, like boil a kettle full of water. The first few days I was working on coffee, Sheila made Carl stand in my arms, between the kettle in my outstretched hands and me. It was sick, and Sheila acknowledges that. It was also insurance. Carl can take the hit better than anybody else in Division S.
Well, that’s not right. Carl can’t take the hit. If the kettle exploded, he would die with a chest full of cookware shrapnel. But then he would wake up back in time, and restart the day. I wouldn’t remember any day where I failed to control my power and ended up exploding the kettle, but Carl would. I end up living the day where Carl made it through alive. Every time. I wake up every day as just a usual day. Carl wakes up more days than the rest of us combined, and by his estimate, less than a tenth of them are usual days. His superhero name is Looper and almost nobody knows he exists.
Sometimes you know he’s died this day before. During a raid on some base of outpost, he’ll say or do something and then five seconds later it becomes clear he was reacting to a future event. Other times, it’s a usual day, not even with a raid, but then he’ll say somebody’s joke at the exact same time. Same inflections, same body language, for just a second he’ll be the perfect mirror of whoever said the joke, and the whole room goes absolutely silent. It’s creepy.
He never says “You’re welcome”. Copying somebody is his way of letting us all know that he’s managed to save our lives without the rest of us having to fight at all. He won’t tell us if we ask, so we’ve learned not to.
My usual morning, after successfully boiling the water, is to brew the coffee and make a breakfast burrito. Nothing pairs with coffee as well as eggs, beans, and salsa. I take my shower, get dressed, and I’m ready to report to the office upstairs at the crack of five o’clock in the morning.
I opened the door to the office to find Carl walking down the open expanse of floor away from me. He couldn’t see me, I’m not even sure he heard the door open.
“Karen, stay right there for me, please,” Carl said.
Shit. My stomach went cold. Carl was counting his steps, turning back on himself and stopping on some combination of starts, stops, and turns that only made sense to him. Eventually, he got back to the door, and me. He dropped into a crouch, and I did too. He pointed to the band of windows along the far wall. I could see the city starting to catch the summer’s earliest rays of light from behind us.
“Sniper” he murmured. “Don’t ask me where he is, or how he knows where we are, but at least he doesn’t have the door covered.”
“Yes, he’s got a big enough bullet to go through that glass. He’s good, too, can double-tap at this range, which is crazy to think about,” Carl continued.
“But the glass-” I start to say before cutting short. “Carl, how many days?” I asked.
He didn’t answer. “Come with me in five seconds yeah?”
Before I could do anything, he was counting down. At “one” he grabbed my hand and pulled me, running double across the office. A supply truck was rolling along with us, down the street outside. We got to a chalk circle drawn on the floor that said “Heatwave” on it. My frozen stomach dropped. He was Marking. That’s what Brock called it. When things have gone badly, that’s when Carl breaks out the sidewalk chalk and starts drawing circles.
“Stay there,” Carl ordered, his voice wavering with intensity. “Do not leave this circle until I tell you. That’s not going to be easy, but I need you to stay. In. The. Circle. Got that?” He looked me dead in the eyes.
“I understand,” I told him.
“Just a moment,” he murmured. “Sheila, don’t move a step further!” he shouted. He turned to me again. “Stay standing exactly as you are. Don’t sit, don’t crouch, just stay standing exactly there.”
Then he counted to seven underneath his breath and took off back across the office floor. As he had a muffled conversation with Sheila, I saw more chalk marks across the floor. There were seven I could see from where I was in mine.
Moments later, he brought Sheila to a circle about halfway from the door to me, adjusted her stance, which, while she was rolling her eyes at me over Carl’s head as he crouched to tweak where her foot went, she allowed to happen. Nobody touches Sheila without permission.
Then, the twins came in. Carl moved them, one at a time to opposite ends. He had them crouched in their circles, staring towards the window. Their eyes were focused in their typical creepy way. I could never stand it when the twins were looking at me. They made a great recon team but they gave me the heebie jeebies almost as much as a bad day from Carl.
“Leopard, don’t move!” Carl shouted soon after the twins were positioned. Leopard stood silent and impassive by the door.
“Yeah, yeah, you never make a noise, I never hear you,” Carl added.
“You can’t hear me-” leopard began saying then stopped.
“‘Oh no’ is right, Leopard,” Carl said before Leopard could react. “Now follow me!”
Carl guided Leopard to his mark on the floor before turning his attention to something else that hadn’t happened het, but would.
“He’s marking,” leopard pointed out. I nodded.
“And I think I’ve got it right this time,” Carl shouted. “We’ll find out though, I guess.”
“When?” Asked Sheila, standing awkwardly in her chalk circle. She shifted her stance a little as she asked.
“Fury’s getting scared?” Carl asked in a mocking tone. “Don’t worry. We’ll find out soon.” Carl held his hand up to his ear. We fell silent. I could hear a faint whooshing noise.
“No,” I breathed.
“Yup,” said Carl just a beat too soon. “Rocket inbound.”
The world exploded into light and noise. Rubble and shattered reinforced glass exploded into the room. I was lucky, set far back from the explosion. Everybody else was much closer to the blast. I had to check on them, to see if they-
“Not one step, Karen!” Carl shouted. “You stay right there!”
I stopped myself, heart pounding in my ears. Carl was glaring at me from his cover. Then, he rummaged around a little and pulled out an assault rifle and shouldered it, looking it into the chaos beyond the explosion.
The rest of the Division of counter-terrorism was in shambles, soldiers scrambling to gain position and identify threats. A group of them came walking brought the wreckage and were heading for us. I was proud of them, rallying so quickly from the shock of the explosion.
Then Carl shot the one in front. Clean, right through the left eye.
The rest of the men scattered, pulling off their guns and scurrying for cover. They didn’t stand a chance.
Carl doesn’t aim a gun. I’ve been around soldiers and in battlefields for a long time. I’ve seen a lot of people aim guns. There’s the pointing, the siting, the exhale, and the squeeze of the trigger, and then the knowledge of whether the aiming was done right or wrong.
Carl doesn’t aim the gun. He points it in a direction and shoots one bullet. Then he’s pointing the gun in another direction and letting off another bullet. In any situation where he’s holding a gun and using it, he’s died at least ten times only counting from when he got far enough to need the gun. Oftentimes more.
The soldiers in our division’s uniforms never got off a single shot. Half were dead before they got to cover. The other half were taken down methodically as they took the time to aim their gun.
“Twins, we’ve got a sniper on us,” Carl said loudly. “ I’m going to bait him into taking a shot. Keep an eye out. Leopard, as soon as the sniper takes the shot, you need to go sweep the compound. Karen, you’ll stay put still. Everybody understand?”
We gave our assent.
“Good. Here we go!” Carl shouted as he stood up, stock still with the gun for just too long before moving. The wall behind him exploded in a shower of dust and concrete chips. Carl ducked down, breathing hard and fast, he was shaking.
“Sniper’s in the Quantech Tower, fiftieth floor. Thirteenth window from the left,” the twins announced in unison as Leopard sprinted out of the devastated wall and melted into the disarray beyond.
“Fury, you’re up! Bring back the weapon!” Carl shouted. Sheila nodded and crouched. Then, glowing wings manifested themselves in flame and she blasted up into the sky.
Carl looked at me for the first time since Sheila showed up at the door. “Now I think we can move,” Carl said as I could see a fiery explosion blossom out of the Quantech Building.
“You think?” I asked.