JUST A BOY
By DANIEL P. SWENSON
Copyright © 2013 by Daniel P. Swenson
Cover art copyright © 2013 by Alessandro Vene
All rights reserved.
Taz learned he was unusually strong for a fourth-grader when he threw a frog one day. The frog flew so far it exited the atmosphere. No one ever heard from the frog again. Its outlook was not good.
With his newly-discovered strength, Taz stood up for the vulnerable underclass of his school. On the playground, his back against a brick wall, surrounded by a mob of frenzied children, he found he could hit so hard people forgot things.
The bully hit him, and Taz hit back. His fragile-looking fist struck the bully squarely in the jaw and knocked him down. The bully got back up. He looked puzzled.
"Where am I?" he said and walked away.
That afternoon, Taz pondered what to do. On instinct, he knew it must be something for good. Taz decided to take on crime.
***
Crime statistics in the town plummeted, as Taz worked his way through the ranks of local criminals. They weren't hard to detect while committing their crimes for someone with vision in the infrared and ultrasensitive hearing.
Hardened men, graduates of various fine penal institutions, began to wander the town, bruised and newly-innocent, uncertain of where they'd been the night before. Some of the hardcases had to be hospitalized. They had forgotten how to walk or hold utensils or read. The police were baffled but could not complain.
***
The meanest criminal in the whole town was Jim Ricks. Everyone called him Mr. Jimmy. Mr. Jimmy was no fool. Half his cohorts no longer remembered him. Some couldn't remember their mothers. And they all looked like they'd taken quite a beating.
Mr. Jimmy could have skipped town. Instead, he set a trap. One night, Mr. Jimmy arranged for an armored car to be robbed. He stood in the shadows as the crime unfolded. Taz arrived just after the driver had been knocked out.
While Mr. Jimmy was taken aback by the unexpected stature of his foe, there was no doubt in his mind as to Taz's abilities. Taz cleaned up the prospective armored car robbers, knocking several of them down the street and into instant forgetfulness. One man simply forgot he hated broccoli, and Taz had to hit him twice. As the men fled, Taz turned to walk home. That was when Mr. Jimmy sprung the trap.
More men, circus workers who owed Mr. Jimmy a favor, sprang from the dark equipped with nets and lead weights and poles. Throwing the first net over him, the men kept him off balance, prodding and striking with the long poles. More weighted nets came down until Taz was immobilized.
In that tight spot, caught beneath several hundred pounds of lead weights and binding ropes, Taz did something he'd never done before. He blew. It wasn't deliberate. It was simply a by-product of fright. He was surprised to see his breath knock over some nearby garbage cans.
Inspired, Taz drew in a gulp of air, from the very bottom of his lungs, and blew out a great gust directed at his captors. As the men sailed away into the night, Taz laughed and threw off the ropes and weights. Taz turned towards the shadows. With his full-spectrum vision, Mr. Jimmy stood out like a sparkler in a night vision scope.
"You're a bad man," Taz said.
"Now hold on there," said Mr. Jimmy, thinking like mad. He was a cunning man, a prison man, a man of rare resourcefulness. "I was just testing you."
"Really?" said Taz.
"Yes," said Mr. Jimmy. "And now I'm going to leave town. I've met my match. You've changed my ways. I feel like a new, better man. I won't break the law ever again."
"That's what they all say," said Taz, and running up in the dark faster than the town's best track and field athlete, he hit Mr. Jimmy so hard the man forgot how to breathe. His brain stem went silent. His lungs lost their motivation.
Mr. Jimmy fell down. He did not move. Taz pounded Mr. Jimmy's chest, the way the doctors did on television. Taz snuffled in the dark, tears dripping off his nose. He'd never meant to kill anyone. And then Mr. Jimmy's body jerked, and he drew in a long, raspy breath.
Taz waited in the dark, listening to Mr. Jimmy's shallow breathing. The man did not wake up, but he seemed okay. Taz wiped his nose. Sirens sounded in the distance. He walked down the street and hid behind a dumpster as the police cars arrived. An ambulance arrived soon afterwards, and they took Mr. Jimmy away.
***
Someone in Washington who was paid to know these things heard about the strange events in the town. Her name was Ms. Conroy, director of a special unit so secret it had no name, no headquarters, and no assigned parking spots. Conroy assembled her secret agents. They set up a sting. Two agents staged a crime, robbery of a convenience store on the outskirts of town. As the men held up the store, Taz walked in and pointed at them.
"Drop those guns," he said.
Instead, the men pointed their guns at Taz. He laughed, drew in a breath, and blew them both into the potato chips rack. That was when the supposed store clerk, another agent, shot Taz in the chest with a tranquilizer dart designed for whales. Conroy watched through spycams as Taz fell to the floor.
Unfortunately for Conroy, Taz's blood cells adapted to the tranquilizer. Shaking off grogginess, Taz stood up. Agents popped up all around him, from behind the Frosty-drink stand, from out of the toxic restrooms, from behind the front counter. They had machine guns and tasers and stun grenades.
"Get on the floor now!" all the agents screamed with one voice. Conroy watched, glued to her video monitor.
"Make me," Taz replied.
The agents let loose with a hail of rubber bullets and explosions. In that fury of unleashed weaponry, the agents lost sight of their quarry. They looked up at an empty sky as debris fell from a hole in the roof.
Taz discovered he could fly.
***
In the exhilaration of newfound flight, Taz took his time getting home that night. He arrived to find an empty house, front door ajar, his family gone. Father and mother, his big brother Chad, and even their dog, Bingo. He heard the swing in the backyard, rusty chains squeaking softly. As he walked through the house to the back door, the squeaking stopped. He opened the door.
Conroy got off the swing and looked him in the eyes. She brushed off her slacks and straightened her jacket.
"It's over," she said. "Give yourself up, and we'll let your family come home tonight."
Taz weighed his options. He guessed she had his family hidden, under guard, probably scared to death. Would she really let them go?
"I'm not done yet," Taz said, and he flew up into the night sky, pulling Conroy along for the ride. He flew up and up. The stars shone brighter and brighter. One thousand feet, two thousand, three.
"It's not going to work," Conroy shouted as frigid air rushed past. She wasn't dressed for a skydive. One of her heels had fallen off. Her hair had come undone and flew about her face. But her eyes remained steely. Conroy had guts.
Taz flew higher and higher. Four thousand feet, five thousand, six. At seven thousand feet and climbing, Conroy began to worry. He wouldn't do it. Would he?
At ten thousand feet, Taz decelerated, came to a stop. Floating there, he looked down at Conroy, both her hands clamped desperately onto his. Her eyes had a wild glint, taking in the curved horizon, the moonlit clouds, and far below, the bright cluster of lights in the town.
"You won't do it," Conroy whispered, as Taz smiled and pulled his hand free.
Conroy cracked at two thousand feet.
"Ok!" she screamed. "Okay, okay, okaaaay!"
Taking her hand, Taz slowed her fall until they hovered with a few hundred feet to spare. Conroy fished a cell phone out of her pocket.
&n
bsp; ***
"Wow," said Chad as Taz lifted their station wagon into the air. Their mother fainted. She had a fear of heights.
"We're going to have a talk about all this," was all his father said. Bingo barked and barked.
"I know, Dad," Taz agreed as he picked up speed. He flew east. Mom and Dad had always wanted a trip to Switzerland.
***
Taz returned home just long enough to pick up his lucky baseball hat. It was clear what he had to do. The world was not a nice place. People just didn't know how to behave. Taz left town determined to set the world straight.
He took on gangs, then moved on to terrorists. He deposed dictators and advertising executives, crooked politicians and telemarketers. Asylums worldwide began to fill with amnesiacs. Throughout it all, Conroy's agents tracked Taz's movement, keeping their distance.
An international summit was convened to discuss the danger in their midst. The Super-economies of the world agreed to unite for the preservation of their common welfare. An alliance with one purpose—Taz must be stopped, they agreed.
They threw armies and navies and air forces at him. Cruise missiles and tanks. Attack helicopters and artillery. When all those failed, they threw down their very last card. They resorted to nukes.
Taz found himself high in the sky, caught in an immense ball of plasma the temperature of the sun. Scorched and wounded, he plummeted to the ground. As the mushroom clouds dissipated, he stood up and climbed out of the massive crater. He walked through the radioactive landscape.
***
Taz sat on top of an abandoned tank. He was not happy. He missed his family. His super-powers no longer seemed to bring about good. He didn't want them anymore. For a long time, he sat on the tank thinking. Could scientists take away his super-powers? Thoughts of operating tables and shots filled his head. That didn’t seem promising. Could he find a witch or wizard to remove them? But he’d never actually met one of those. Did they even exist? Finally, he realized he didn't have to change. He just needed to start over. Super-powers didn't mean he had to fix everything. He was still just a boy.
Taz looked up and scanned the horizon. Flashes of binoculars. There, and there, and there. He picked out the tiny, camouflaged dots, his ears intercepting the hushed conversations. And then he had it. The voices broke into worried chatter as he took to the air. Ten miles away, Taz settled onto the branch of a lone tree perched on a hill, surrounded by corn fields.
"Boo," he said.
"Hi, Taz," Conroy said, looking up from where she sat against the tree. Her green and brown clothes matched the marks on her face. Her eyes glinted tough as ever, but she seemed tired.
"I want to ask you something," Taz said.
"Yes?"
"If I stop, will you stop, too?"
"Yes," she said, looking relieved. "It's a truce."
They shook on it. Taz smiled, and then Conroy was left looking up into the sky.
Taz punched a hole through the clouds, as he reached supersonic velocity. Leveling off, he flew towards Switzerland. He had so much to tell his parents. And he wanted some chocolate.
NOTE TO READERS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Daniel P. Swenson lives in southern California with his wife, two children and two furry aliens with claws and whiskers. He does most of his writing on the train or in other odd, in-between moments. Comments and questions are welcome. He can be reached at
[email protected].
Websites:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100010050854893
https://danielpswenson.wordpress.com/
OTHER WORKS BY DANIEL P. SWENSON
BOOKS:
The Farthest City
Fate Multiplied (collected stories)
SELECTED SHORT STORIES:
Overwrite My Love
Thieves on the Long Dark Road
Belly of the Universe
Space Tagger (published in Neo-Opsis issue 25)
Lonely, Lonely (originally published in Lore vol. 2, no. 1)
Just a Boy