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LIGHTWEIGHT
1: “Dreams”
By Nicholas Ahlhelm
Published by Metahuman Press.
Cover illustration by Brent Sprecher.
Lightweight logo designed by Cynthia Celeste Miller. Lightweight costume and insignia design by Brent Sprecher.
Some fonts used in production of this book were created by Blambot and are used under their Free Font License Agreement. © Nate Piekos. Blambot.com.
CONTENTS
“Dreams”
Bonus Pages
Letters
Character Profile: Lightweight
Backers
I floated in the air. I was on my back, a pillow beneath me, but around me was the wide open sky. The wild blue yonder, my uncle in the Air Force used to talk about.
I knew it was a dream, but in some way that I can’t even begin to explain, I also knew it wasn’t. Like it was real and a dream all at the same time.
I could feel the cold air across my skin as I laid there, my eyes closed. My body was chilled like I was sitting in front of an air conditioner, but I knew I should be much colder. I wore only the boxers I normally stripped to before bed.
I really didn’t want to, but I knew I needed to open my eyes. I knew this dream—or whatever it was—wouldn’t end until I did. I sat up gingerly. Even if this was a dream, I still couldn’t get over the fear of falling and like I said, I was on a cloud. I was a bit worried about that.
I slowly let my eyes crack open. The world rushed into my eyeballs with a blast of color. The sky was darkened and rusty colored, the kind of red sky that sailors apparently always go on about.
But it wasn’t the weird sky that really drew my attention in. It was the random objects floating around the cloud and me. A blender. A toaster oven. An old tire. A box of tattered Archie comics. A six pack of Mountain Dew. A ten speed bike. An M-16.
I looked over them with confusion as they slowly circled around me. I decided this had to be a dream. I couldn’t be flying and all these random things certainly couldn’t be making a slow rotation around my cloudy perch.
They were like a half dozen little moons all floating around me like a tiny planet.
Far below me, I could see the lights of Federation stretched out. Hundreds of them, tiny cars moving like tiny lighted insects. Five million men and women slept or did whatever people do in the middle of the night. Or they would be, if they were real.
I wanted down and out of there, but no matter how long I wished for the dream to end, it wasn’t going anywhere. Whoever said that dreams end when you tell yourself to wake up clearly never made it into this dream.
I tested the cloud again with my hands. It was soft, but supportive, not unlike the bed I wished I could reach from this dream.
Take me out of here, I thought. Just take me home.
The cloud suddenly shifted beneath me. It shot downwards. In seconds, I soared straight down, the darkened ground rushing towards me. I plummeted through the night sky, but I felt no fear. Somehow I knew I was safe. I was in control. This is what I was meant to do. It was as natural as walking. As breathing.
I was free.
**
“Kevin! Kevin! Are you awake?”
The pounding on his door forced Kevin Mathis to open his eyes. His mom’s voice echoed through his skull as he shook off the dream. He stared up at the ceiling of his room. Only it was far too close to him. He could reach out and touch it. But how—
Kevin dropped down out of the sky. He crashed back first on to the mattress of his bed. The sudden shock of pain took him by surprise, but it was nothing like the realization that he had been airborne.
It was just a dream, he thought. It could only be a dream.
His blankets were wrapped around him, almost knotted by his sudden—whatever that was. He worked them off his body and stumbled out of the bed.
His mother knocked again. “Kevin, are you all right in there? Do I need to get the key?”
“I’m fine, Mom. Just fell out of my bed.”
“You better hurry up and get ready. Your friends will be here in fifteen minutes.”
Kevin glanced at his clock. He cursed under his breath as he ran for the dresser.
Exactly thirteen minutes later he was showered (more or less), dressed and in the kitchen. As he grabbed a pop tart (always brown sugar and cinnamon) from the box, he heard the horn outside.
Mom sat at the kitchen table as he frantically put his breakfast together. She rolled her eyes as she sipped at her coffee. “You know you could tell your friends to stop in once in awhile. I don’t think I’ve seen Andy once since he got that Taurus.”
Kevin leaned down and planted a quick kiss on his mother’s cheek. “That’s because Andy doesn’t leave it unless someone makes him. He would take his classes in that thing if they would let him.”
He gave her a wave as he grabbed his bag and headed out the door. Andy was double-parked in front of the duplex. Millie was already walking down the street from the next house over.
“Hey, stranger,” she said. “Ready for one last year of this?”
“Ready for it to be over. Nine months and counting. Oh, I got one for you. What do high school and Lauryn Hill have in common?”
Millie rolled her eyes, even as she pushed her long black hair out of her eyes. “Fine, what?”
“Both will kill you softly.”
“Do you ever tell good jokes?”
“I only share the very finest humor.”
Andy honked again. Kevin and Millie both turned to see him waving them down towards the car.
“Let’s not keep our ride waiting,” Millie said. “He might leave us.”
“That would be less time in his precious. You and I both know he wouldn’t give that up.” Despite his words, Kevin joined Millie in the few short steps to Andy’s car. A moment later, they were on their way to their last first day of high school.
**
Kevin was sure that despite their protests, most kids loved school. The preppies and jocks loved the adulation they received. The nerds loved their chance to flex their mental muscles. Even the druggies appreciated the easy connections they could find here.
Unfortunately for him, he fit in none of those categories at Herbert Hoover High School. He wasn’t an idiot, but he wasn’t a brain either. School work wasn’t hard, but it offered little to interest him.
He wasn’t rich enough to hang with the preps. He wasn’t much of an athlete either. He always remained in decent shape despite never really exerting himself. He meandered around the skiing club for freshman and sophomore year, but a broken leg in his second year ended what was at best a mediocre career on the snow.
Popularity eluded him, though he gave up trying to impress anyone before he moved to the city anyway. He fell in naturally with Andy while Millie’s house next door made her instantly easy to reach. She was far smarter than both of them combined, but Kevin always assumes she stayed in their clique out of convenience and loyalty.
Whatever the reason she was there, he was happy to have her and Andy beside him. Their group kept him sane when surrounded by several hundred hormone-filled borderline sociopaths with attention deficit disorder. More importantly, they served as an early warning system for George.
Nearly nineteen, six and a half feet tall and rippling with every muscle human growth hormone could provide, George Arnold was the poster child for poor impulse control. And he despised Kevin more than anyone else.
This time they proved no help. Neither Millie nor Andy saw George coming. But Kevin sure felt the football smash in to his lower back. He stumbled forward, barely saving himself from a face full of asphalt.
He turned, ready to face down his bully. Kevin was just over six feet himself, but his frame was much smaller than George’s. He couldn’t hope to beat the guy in a fair fight.
That didn’t mean he wouldn’t try though.
George walked up to him, flanked by two other defensive linemen on
the football team. Together they probably weighed half a ton.
Kevin didn’t care. He picked up the ball between himself and the players as he stared George down.
“Sorry,” George said. A smirk filled his face. “I lost the ball. Hope it didn’t hurt anyone.”
Kevin raised the ball and spiked it hard against the cement. It flew up in to the air and over the jock’s heads.
“That’s unfortunate,” he said. “Seems I can’t keep a hold of it either.”
George stepped forward and shoved Kevin. Kevin stumbled back. He never took his eyes off George for a second.
“You gonna do something, punk?”
Kevin stepped towards George, but Millie grabbed his arm. She held him back. “Not here. We don’t want to get expelled.”
“I don’t care. I—”
“I care,” Millie said. “I can’t be part of this. I can’t risk a scholarship over a stupid fist fight. Think about it—for me.”
Kevin sighed. She was right. She and Andy would certainly be pulled in to any trouble Kevin was in.
Kevin looked at George. “Better grab your ball before someone else does.”
Would serve him right if someone threw it at him now, Kevin thought.
“GAAH!” George’s cry took everyone by surprise, but not as much as the football smashing into the back of his head took him by surprise.
George spun around as he grasped the back of his head. “Who threw that? Who the hell threw that ball?”
No one answered, but everyone turned to look at George as he nursed his head.
“Come on,” Andy said quietly. “This is our chance to jet.”
Millie pulled Kevin away, but Kevin couldn’t take his mind off the ball.
I did that. I made that ball move without even thinking about it. It’s a dream. It is only supposed to be a damn dream.
**
First period was calculus, which Kevin found pointless and challenging. English lit was next. The professor immediately assigned them to read an old Thomas Hardy novel. Kevin has some doubts this Hardy came with any detective skills.
Third period was computer science. Kevin was pretty sure he could teach the instructor a few things that would blow his mind. He looked over at Millie a few desks away more than once, as this was their first class together. She was far superior with a PC than he was. Only the fear of getting caught kept her from becoming a full on hack-master. But she still listened intently to Mister Van Horne, taking notes on her laptop.
“How do you do that?” Kevin said after the bell, as they both walked to the lunch line.
“Do what?”
“Act like Van Horne says anything interesting at all ever. The class will be an easy A, but he’s so damn boring. His knowledge of computer science stopped with Windows 3.1.”
She shrugged. “He’s not so bad. I wish they had a more advanced program, but Van Horne at least has some different perspective on things.”
“Like what?”
“He still thinks the world is an inherently good place.”
“And you don’t?”
“I may be a few months farther from eighteen than you, Kev. But in my three years here, the school has had seven deaths in just that time. Suicides, car accidents, even a murder. I can go down a hall and find every drug known to man available for purchase. If high school doesn’t teach you the world’s a hard place, I don’t know what does. “
“I guess I never thought about it.”
“Really, not even with George around?”
“He’s just a thug. He’s not representative of society as a whole.”
“I swear you can find the good in places they never existed.” Millie brushed her long black hair out of her face, a nervous twitch Kevin noticed every time she was a bit frustrated. “I guess it’s one of the traits I like best about you. Definitely more than your need to pick fights.”
“I don’t pick fights, Millie. But I also don’t run away from them.”
“It’s a noble trait, or it would be if you didn’t get your ass kicked so much.”
“I’m not that bad, am I?”
They reached the head of the lunch line finally. Both bypassed the brown gel (marked as salisbury steak) for the pizza station. It still wasn’t exactly good, but at least it seemed edible.
“You suck,” Millie said. “You ever consider some karate or judo?”
“You going to teach me?”
“Just because Mom’s Korean doesn’t make me a martial arts master.”
“No but the black belt and gi in your closet do.”
“How do you—” She smacked him in the shoulder. “I’m never letting you in my room again.”
“Oh, come on. You left the closet door cracked once. I was just curious.”
They sat down at their usual table, a corner setup that only seated four. Andy hadn’t made his appearance yet, so they were still alone.
“Curious, huh? You know what I am curious about?”
“What?”
She leaned in close and her voice dropped an octave. “How did you make that ball hit George in the head?”
“It came at him from behind. I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
Millie put her pizza down, her face now serious. “I saw it all, Kev. I could see past George. I saw the ball come up off the ground. I saw it fly through the air. And I saw it smash directly in to the back of George’s head. No one touched it. And I sure as hell didn’t see any wires. So how did you do it?”
“I—” Kevin shook his head. He felt like his world was suddenly collapsing around him. “How do you know it was me? Why would you think I have some kind of power?”
“I saw the look on your face when that football hit George. I saw a bit of excitement, but mostly you looked surprised. And that’s not a look I see much when you’re knocking heads with George Arnold.”
“It came out of nowhere. Anyone would be surprised by that. I—”
“Don’t lie to me, Kevin Edison Mathis. We know each other far too well for that.”
Kevin opened his mouth, ready to defend himself, to make up some other lie. But he stopped, his mouth still hanging open. He knew he couldn’t keep up this charade, not with Millie. “I-I’m not sure. I—”
“What’s up, peeps?”
Andy flung his body in to the chair between Millie and Kevin. They both stopped to look at him.
“What?” Andy said. “Did I do something wrong? Were you both professing your true love to one another?”
Kevin and Millie met eyes, but quickly turned away from each other. Shut up, Kevin thought, loudly projecting those words towards Andy. He hoped he wasn’t turning beat read in front of Andy and Millie.
The truth was he did have feelings for Millie. He loved her—or at least he was pretty sure he did. He didn’t know for sure, because she was the first person that ever made him feel that way. But she was also his best friend. He was mortified he could screw that up if he made a move on her. What if she didn’t feel the same way?
“No,” Millie said matter-of-factly, finally breaking the uncomfortable silence. “We were just discussing—” She paused and met Kevin’s eyes. Kevin prayed she wouldn’t give his secret away. “—a special project we might do for computer science class. Isn’t that right, Kevin?”
“Uh, yeah, a project.”
Andy looked at them both and shook his head. “You’re both acting weirder than usual. And that’s saying something, you know what I mean? You sure you’re not hiding something from me, maybe a little smoochy smoochy?”
“No,” they both said at once.
Andy shrugged. He looked at both their trays. “Anyway, you going to eat that pizza?”
**
Millie didn’t know what to make of Kevin’s evasiveness. He told her everything. Or so she had thought until today. He definitely told her a lot. It sure seemed like everything.
But not this. And this was something big.
Kevin had super powers.
>
The whole idea made her smile as they all rode home in Andy’s car. She sat in the back seat as Kevin deflected all of Andy’s plans for afternoon grand adventures. He glanced back towards her each time he told Andy he had no interest in McDonalds, skee ball or an all-night drive to Minneapolis or Chicago.
Millie kept silent. She wasn’t sure if Kevin really wanted to talk about his special abilities or just wanted to get the conversation about them over. She worried sometimes if she pressured him too much. Maybe he didn’t’ want to spend all the time he did with her.
Despite her best hopes.
She pushed that thought back in to its resting place. It wouldn’t help her or him if she focused on some dumb teenage unrequited love.
Andy pulled the car up to the front of the twin brownstones that Millie and Kevin called home. Millie gave Andy a pat on the shoulder and a quick thanks before she climbed out of the car.
“My place or yours?” She realized how the words sounded as Andy pulled away. She could feel the heat rise in her face.
He either didn’t notice her double entendre or didn’t care. “Let’s go to your house. My dad will be home soon.”
“All right,” she said as she pulled out her keys. Her parents regularly worked late. Both were in their fifties and worked as adjunct professors at Crockett College only a few miles away. They trusted her to get her schoolwork done, feed herself and stay out of trouble. In exchange, they kept her with a healthy allowance that meant she didn’t need an after school job.
They made their way into the living room and dropped their bags. Kevin sent a quick text, probably to one parent or the other. He grabbed a soda from the fridge as she made herself comfortable on the couch.
Kevin walked back out of the kitchen area and met her eyes. “So,” he said.
“So,” she said. This all felt terribly awkward. Her fingers found her long black hair. She twisted it around her hand as she waited for him to talk.
“I—I’ve been having these dreams.”
“Dreams? What kind of dreams?”
“I’m flying, floating on the clouds really. There’s stuff all around me, forming rings. Mostly junk like, toasters, clothes, car parts, just weird stuff. I—somehow I know it’s there because of me.”
“And you have these dreams regularly?”
“Almost every night,” Kevin said.
“For how long.”
“Almost six months now.”
“Six months! Kevin, why didn’t you tell me?”