Super

Vanessa and I are standing by the window when the helicopter starts shooting. The window reaches out with glass and bullets while I push her through. We fall down the cliff toward the ocean and I remember water isn't all that soft at 60 feet. Vanessa transforms into a gull below me and soars away. I can hear the pilot whining his guns to follow me. At least she'll make it.

I go in like a pencil and the water catches me in what feels like electricity. I can see bullet wakes around me so I dive - riding the adrenalin from the fall and the cold. An over sized fish comes alongside and I grab its dorsal fin. It moves so quickly that the water nearly blows me off. When my lungs can't take another moment, the fish flares its gills and she transforms. Vanessa's kiss fills my mouth with the air in her lungs. I don't even think about the intimacy until later. She repeats the race and the kiss until we're safe.

I tell her I have to go back. She should meet us at the rendezvous. She hunches into squirrel and runs into the woods. With that talent, Vanessa'll outlive us all.

*****

David's waiting for me. It's poetic, really. He's a traitor to his kind and I'm a traitor to mine. Most people think of superheroes as big and muscle-bound, but the truth is you don't really get that much opportunity to bulk up when you can bench press a city bus. David looks like an emo kid in preppy clothes.

"I should have known they'd send you. You coming in for a drink or do you want it here?"

"Depends. Where do you want to die?"

I invite him in. I hold open the door as he goes in first, arrogantly giving me his back. I taught him better than that. I'm strangely calm. Zen. Do the Shaolin fight in this kind of trance?

The door closes and my foot is in his oblique. I follow with a left hook. Way too slow for David, he blocks it easy just like he's supposed to. My blocked hand pushes his elbow, turning him slightly and jamming his counter. I'm twisted like a coil and unleash my right fist into his pubic bone with a satisfying crack.

Even a superhero can't walk with a broken pubic bone. I get the laptop and tell David I'll see him later. Humans would take three months to recover from an injury like that. I've got a three day head start at most...