Shortcuts

A paranormal superhero story with a supernatural twist

Revealing slips of the tongue

Comments have been blocked for this story but kudos and private messages are always welcome. Even highly critical private messages are welcome. I don't mind criticism when it's private.

Shortcuts
by Terry Volkirch

Chapter 5

Wandering through the Akashic records that night led to an unusually helpful collection of knowledge that skirted the edge of athletic training before plowing through medieval weapon fighting techniques and vicious hand-to-hand combat. Lester's martial arts training started early and he wasn't really surprised. He could learn pure knowledge, physical skills and paranormal abilities. Whatever he found in the Akashic records, he could learn.

'Brutal,' he thought, but he realized that the martial arts might save his life someday. Even if he didn't use the techniques himself, knowing them could help him defend himself against them.

As he absorbed his first broadsword lessons, he had the feeling of being watched, and when he concentrated more on that feeling, it developed into something more. He felt like something or someone gently guided him from that point on, and just before waking up, he gained a most useful paranormal ability. He developed enhanced reflexes that were further reinforced by a very short-term view of the future. Detecting an attempted attack a second or two in advance made it much easier to avoid the attack. Lester called it his danger sense and it left him shaking his head in wonder.

'My life is turning into a comic book.'

A loud, feminine voice brought him back from his dream state, but it wasn't his mother as he first thought. The voice came from his radio alarm clock. It was a woman reading the top news headlines. The boy listened until the woman finished and wished he hadn't. He heard nothing but bad news and it saddened him.

A careful use of telekinesis turned off the radio and pulled back the bed covers, leaving Lester to levitate out of bed. He gave himself a gentle telekinetic push and slowly drifted towards his closet. As he floated, it occurred to him that he was basically flying. He could fly! The realization caught him by surprise more than anything. He really was living a comic book life.

Making plans for that evening occupied his thoughts until he left the house that morning. The shortening days would make it easier for some much needed practice outside. Nighttime in a nearby park would provide the necessary cover to practice in secret. He needed to test the range and strength of his telekinesis and he couldn't wait to let loose with some flying.

Lester made it to his bus stop with plenty of time to spare, leading back to daydreams of Erin while he waited for the bus. But his daydreams seemed a little off that morning. The girl of his dreams began to lose a little of her allure. With an unusual clarity of thought that came indirectly from his special control ability, some of the things she'd been saying added up to cause some small measure of suspicion about her. A vague suspicion nagged at him until yet another voice interrupted his thoughts that morning.

"Hey dude," Brian said as he sat next to his friend.

"Oh. Hey Brian."

"Daydreaming about Erin again?"

"Who else?" Lester flashed a brief grin before turning serious. "But it's not what you think. Something about her is bothering me."

"You mean besides not wanting to date you?"

Lester sighed. "Yes, it's not about dating."

"Let me guess," Brian said with annoyingly good cheer. "She seems too perfect, like she's not real. This is all just a dream. Wake up, Lester. Wake up!"

"You can really be a jerk sometimes."

Brian just laughed.

"But you're half right about Erin," Lester said. "It's not that she's perfect. It's more like she's unreal. You remember that first day when we all sat together at lunch. She knew all about me and she picked at her food like she'd never tasted it before."

"Yeah. I have given it a little thought. The thing that really got me was how she didn't realize she was cute. Maybe she was a tomboy before, but she came to school wearing a dress and looking hot. How could she not know she was cute?"

"Now that I think about it, she's said a lot of things that don't make sense. Sometimes she doesn't seem much like a girl."

"Dude!"

"Calm down, Brian. I don't mean physically. Her body is definitely all girl, but sometimes she seems uncomfortable with herself. She says a lot of weird things that don't make sense."

"Yeah. So do all girls."

"I don't mean the usual things. She doesn't talk about boys and shopping and stuff. Everything seems new to her. Everything! It's like she hasn't always been a girl."

"Dude!"

"Yeah. Sometimes I wonder if she's had a sex change."

"No way!"

"Yeah. You're right. That doesn't exactly fit what she's said."

"No, dude. I mean there's no way she was ever a boy."

"I don't think so either but she doesn't act like any girl I've seen. Nothing about her makes sense."

Brian smirked then. "And you're still planning on taking self-defense classes with her?"

"Yeah, I am. We could both use some self-defense. I'd ask you to join us but I don't think Erin would like it. Sorry."

"It's okay. I don't think I need any self-defense. I don't have Big Jim breathing down my neck."

"Yeah. Lucky me."

Brian nodded. "Lucky you. I hope you get to spar with her. Maybe that would thaw her out a little."

Lester laughed a short while until he started imagining himself in his upcoming aikido class, grappling with Erin like he saw two competitors do in an Olympic judo match once. His eyes glazed over and the two friends lapsed into a comfortable silence for the rest of the bus ride to school.

* * *

School was school, ordinary and bland. Mister Guile seemed satisfied with Lester's progress so he delivered a forgettable lecture about the structure of state government. Time passed quickly until lunch time.

Lester sat in his usual spot and paused before taking his first bite. He turned to watch Erin try something new. She stabbed a tater tot with her fork and held it up to her mouth to sample it with the tip of her tongue. The boy laughed when she wrinkled up her nose in distaste and daintily removed the tater tot from her fork. "That's not real food, you know," he told her.

"Why do they serve it then?" she asked, looking genuinely confused.

"Well, they used to serve a lot of junk food. But it has been getting better. Slowly."

"Junk food?"

"Yeah. Something that's basically edible and not really good for you. It tastes good but has little nutritional value."

"That's so sad."

"Yeah. But seriously, Erin. How can you not have heard of junk food? Don't they have junk food where you're from, wherever that is?" He tried to fish for more details about her life.

"No," she said, then stuffed a fork full of cooked carrots into her mouth.

Lester frowned. She continued to be evasive and it bothered him. Still, he changed the subject. He'd patiently wait for her to slip up with another stray info bite about herself. That would be a better time to start a serious interrogation. "My mom called about getting us into that aikido class next Tuesday evening. Is that okay? It doesn't sound very expensive."

He took a bite of his mashed potatoes and waited for an answer.

She soon agreed and the date, such as it was, was set. There was only one other matter that Lester wanted to address.

"Erin?"

"Hm?" she said with a mouthful of carrots.

"Why don't you own a cell phone?"

She looked a little confused and then she got a faraway look on her face. She spent several seconds that way before answering, "Because I don't need one."

"No one really needs one. But they're nice to have. They're really handy for emergencies, looking things up, staying in touch. What if you get stuck somewhere and need a ride or something?"

"That's impossible," she said, then frowned. "I mean it's not likely. I have a set schedule and if I don't keep to it, certain events take effect."

"You mean someone will come looking for you."

"Something like that."

"What if they can't find you?"

"Impossible."

"What? You have a GPS implant or something?"

"GPS?"

"Never mind. I give up... for today. But someday I'll figure you out."

She gave him a sad smile but didn't say anything more about the subject.

The pair of them finished lunch and went through the rest of their classes together, ending with more soccer and a shower.

Erin came out of the girl's locker room with her hair blow dried to perfection. She'd even reapplied what little makeup that she started using only a few days ago.

Lester looked at her fingernails and warned her not to try growing them out or getting fake nails. Long fingernails could easily scratch someone during their self-defense class. Other than that, he liked her increasingly feminine look even if it did drive him to distraction.

The pair walked their usual few blocks together after school with Lester looking over his shoulder soon after they separated. Once again he looked just in time to see his friend fade into the mist. The peculiar mist kept forming even on the clearest fall day and it did nothing but fuel his growing suspicion that Erin wasn't nearly as normal as he first thought.

* * *

Lester distracted himself with homework as soon as he got home from school, anything to keep from thinking about his plans to test his telekinesis and flying later that night. It worked well enough while it lasted but he finished everything an hour before dinner and locked himself away in his bedroom to fine tune his abilities.

His toy dragon, Scorch, flew around the room, chasing after the wireless mouse. The game of cat and mouse got a little out of control and ended when the flying objects knocked his desk lamp onto the floor. It was just as well.

"Lester!" his mother's voice rang out, startling him. "Come and get it!"

Dinner came early that night. He left his room in its slightly messy state and headed for the kitchen, where he inhaled his food, barely remembering what he ate. His mother commented on his table manners at some point and he simply nodded. The boy's thoughts were mostly in the near future, with him flying over the treetops in the dim light of a crescent moon. The pleasant vision called to him and he soon obeyed. With night having fallen during the meal, all he had left to do was throw on a jacket, tell his parents that he was going for a little walk and he was gone. Being Friday night, his parents didn't begrudge him some extra time to himself since he wouldn't have to get up early for school.

The walk to the large park took less time than usual, not because of any running or jogging on his part but because he used a little telekinesis to lighten himself and take longer, gliding steps. He soon found himself on the edge of a thick stand of trees at one end of the park, looking around for targets for his telekinesis. With no detailed plans, it wasn't clear what to do first.

The swing set in the nearby children's play area looked promising, and he soon had all of the swings going in unison. He backed away from it until he was easily a hundred yards away and still kept everything moving. His range was over a hundred yards. With a focus on one swing, he kept backing away until he was out of the park and across the adjacent street before he felt his hold loosening. At that point, he estimated that he was around three hundred yards away. The exact distance didn't matter. He could use the feedback to know when he was getting towards the edge of his range.

He walked back towards the play area and set all of the swings in motion, this time in an undulating pattern. Higher and higher they went until, with a last burst of power, he sent them all swinging hard enough to wrap tightly around the top horizontal bar that they all hung from. It was too easy.

With a sigh, he used his ability to slowly unwind the swings and left them gently swaying before turning his attention to finding his ability's weight limit. After looking around, he found himself drawn back to the street, where several cars were parked on both sides.

'Might as well start with the heaviest things I can find.'

He stayed back in the shadows, made sure no one was around and concentrated on the closest car, a small hatchback, starting with its back wheels. With some significant effort, the back of the car slowly rose until the wheels began to lift off of the pavement, and they kept rising until they were about two feet up. He slowly lowered the car and found himself almost hyperventilating with excitement and a little fear. He estimated that he could easily lift over three times that amount.

His next task had all four wheels of the same car lifting above the ground. He lifted the whole car, and on a playful impulse, spun the car 180 degrees so it faced the opposite direction before he lowered it back down.

Moving on to his next target, a large pickup truck, he immediately began lifting it until all of its wheels floated a foot above the street. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead from the exertion but it felt good, like he could keep at it for quite a long time. Lifting the large truck didn't seem any more strenuous than taking a long walk up a slight incline.

With nothing heavier in the immediate vicinity, Lester lowered the truck and had a sudden thought. He still had yet to test the limits of his enhanced strength. He also wondered how strong he might be if he combined his enhanced strength with his telekinesis. The large playground equipment back in the play area of the park tempted him back and he started by using his enhanced strength along with his healing. He could bend the thinner metal bars without straining too much. The thicker ones wouldn't budge. Using his telekinesis by itself, the thicker ones bent about as easily as the thinner bars did with his enhanced strength. But the real test came when he combined his abilities, and he soon found himself easily mangling even the thickest bars into all different shapes. It felt like shaping clay, and it took a little self-control to stop himself. With a sigh, he returned all of the bent bars to their original, straight lines. He shouldn't have been able to do that. Combining his abilities made him a lot stronger than simply adding one ability to the other. The combination somehow acted like a multiplier.

After staring into space for nearly half an hour, the awestruck boy walked home in a daze. Combining his enhanced strength with telekinesis essentially gave him super strength, again like something out of a comic book. He had no doubt that he could pick up the small hatchback that he first lifted and throw it across the street into the nearest house.

'Now I'm starting to scare myself,' he thought with a shudder.

He forgot all about trying to fly. Instead, he went straight home and immediately headed for the bathroom to brush and floss his teeth, followed by a long, hot shower. After saying good night to his surprised parents, he crawled into bed and quickly fell asleep. He didn't go anywhere near the Akashic records that night, but he did have a wonderful dream which had him flying all over the city.

* * *

The weekend flew by quickly, figuratively and literally as Lester practiced his flying. He started Saturday night, back at the park near his home, with levitation to raise him just above the treetops and telekinesis to propel him around. A short, careful application of telekinesis would send the boy moving horizontally in a straight line. It took more telekinesis to make turns and go up or down, but again, it was all too easy. With his ability to absorb Akashic records, he could master anything he learned. The only thing that slowed him down was his own caution.

After a short, circular flight over the park, it didn't take long before he felt confident enough to gain some serious elevation. He quickly rose several hundred feet and slowly flew away from the city lights, preferring the cover of darkness over the more rural areas. He checked in all directions for jets and airplanes and then took off like a shot to the east. His ability made him immune to the affects of acceleration. There were no g-forces to distort his face and make him pass out. The only thing to annoy him was the rushing wind. He blinked tears out of his eyes until he finally realized that he needed to slow down.

'Maybe I should get some goggles,' he thought at first, until he realized that he could use telekinesis to divert the air in front of him. He tried a flat shield at first but air resistance slowed him down so he changed to a conical shape and once again hit very high speeds, even breaking the sound barrier, though he didn't realize it when it happened. He didn't feel any different at the time. It was only after he heard local news accounts of a mysterious sonic boom that he knew it was caused by his maiden flight.

On Sunday night, Lester lifted several vehicles at the same time with his telekinesis. He included some lighter objects like a few rocks and his house keys along with the vehicles and had no trouble keeping control over everything. He also practiced some slower flying, and again, after he went to sleep that night, he ignored the Akashic records. He didn't even think about learning more abilities, not when he was enjoying his flying and telekinesis so much.

He snuck in a little flying on Monday night but on Tuesday morning, he got excited for an entirely different reason. Later that day, he'd be walking Erin to his house for the first time. They'd study together, have dinner and then take their first aikido lesson.

The excited boy got to the bus stop and couldn't stop thinking about spending the evening with Erin. The bus driver had to honk at him to get him to climb aboard.

Brian got on at his stop, took one look at his friend and almost went to the back of the bus. It hurt him to see his friend so wrapped up in a girl and making no real progress with her. He had another problem too. In spite of the lack of progress, it still made him a little envious that Lester was able to spend so much time with her, and he disgusted himself, so he sat next to his friend and tried to work his way through the envy.

"Hey Lester. Tonight's the night. Hm?"

"Huh? Oh! Hi Brian. Yeah. Erin's coming over tonight for studying and dinner so my mom can drive us both to the aikido dojo. It's gonna be great!"

"I hope so. Good luck, dude."

"Thanks, man. But I doubt anything will happen between us tonight. It's a little too soon I think. I'll be patient but I will keep after her. I know she likes me."

"But you said she doesn't date. That's weird. Is she saving herself for marriage or something?"

"I hope not. How can she ever hope to get married if she never dates?"

Brian cocked his head. "Yeah. That doesn't make sense, does it, unless she doesn't want to get married."

The two of them rode on in companionable silence, only speaking to say goodbye when they reached school and went off to their respective classes.

* * *

Mister Guile took one look at Lester that morning and flashed one of his creepiest smiles ever. It made half the class, including Lester and Erin, shudder in revulsion and turn away so they couldn't see it. It wasn't until several minutes after he started his lecture that they all gave him their full attention.

The faux substitute teacher started talking about state rights versus federal rights, and as he did once before, he started dropping hints about another paranormal ability, this time telepathy, also known as mind reading. He kept using the term "mind reader" in his lecture and as he spoke, he began to draw another diagram with circles and letters. It was supposed to be another crude map of the Akashic records that was meant to help direct Lester to where he could absorb information about telepathy.

"You don't have to be mind reader to know what went through the minds of the founding fathers when they formed the rules about state rights. They wanted to be fair, to make states feel like they could have a little independence. Independence is what it's all about. Mind reader or not, I'd say that's all any of us really want; a little independence."

The man had gotten about halfway done with his diagram when Erin interrupted.

"That's enough Mister Guile," she warned. "I know what you're doing now and you need to stop."

Half the class, including Lester, stared at her. The other half stared at their teacher, who grinned and raised his hands in an innocent gesture. "I don't know what you mean, Miss MacCloud," he said. "I'm not a mind reader after all. Not really."

"Just stop, Mister Guile. Haven't you done enough damage?"

"Damage? I'd say things are working out nicely."

"You know what I mean. One more line on the white board and the wager is off."

The students all mouthed the word "wager" and continued to stare with confused looks on their faces. That included Lester. No one was more confused than Lester.

The short man suddenly looked like a thief caught red-handed, but when he turned to erase the white board, a sly grin briefly spread across his face. He took his time cleaning the white board and wiped the grin from his face before he turned back to the class. "There," he said. "Is that better, Miss MacCloud?"

"Thank you, Mister Guile. I'm sorry for being so… forceful."

"It's quite all right, Miss MacCloud. Rules are rules, even if they aren't always written down. Now may I please continue my lecture?"

She nodded and he resumed his talk, trying to educate a class full of very confused students.

The class bell rang not long after the lecture finished and all of the students filed out with Lester and Erin leaving last.

"What was that about?" Lester whispered loudly to Erin.

Mister Guile overheard and smiled the same creepy smile he started the class with. Mercifully, no one saw it.

The last pair left the class room and were several steps down the hall before Erin spoke. "You mean my exchange with Mister Guile?"

"What else? That was weird. Really weird. It's like you know him."

"Know who?"

"Mister Guile. You don't know him, do you?"

"Why did you have to ask that, Lester?"

"Okay. If you don't want to answer that, then what was that about a wager?"

"Same question. Different form."

Lester narrowed his eyes. "So you do know Mister Guile, and you made a wager with him. Why?! What wager?! You don't seem like the gambling type to me."

"Please stop. You're embarrassing me." Her eyes started tearing up and the boy's heart melted.

"I'm sorry. But it's just so… weird."

"Life is weird, Lester. It's also unfair and quite dark at times. But it can also be good, full of goodness and love. It all depends on your perspective, and yours is nothing but good, Lester. Please don't change. Please." She sounded like she was begging him, and she stopped to grab him in a hug and soak his shoulder with her tears.

"Hey," he said, awkwardly patting her back. "It's okay. It'll be okay." He put the wager and Mister Guile out of his mind for the moment and concentrated on comforting the distraught girl. It took a little encouragement but he got her walking again. They both sat down at their desks just before the bell rang to signal the start of their next class.

Erin hated herself as she dabbed at her eyes. She didn't like being manipulative, didn't like it at all. But her tears were the only thing she could think of to derail Lester.

'Being human is so difficult.'

* * *

© 2015 by Terry Volkirch. This work may not be replicated in whole or in part by any means electronic or otherwise without the express consent of the Author (copyright holder). All Rights Reserved. This is a work of Fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional and any resemblance to real people or incidents past, present or future is purely coincidental.