The Loop

It had been full dark when we’d left New York, so it was a bit disorienting walking through a portal into Shannon’s backyard in Texas where the sun was still setting.

There was a lot of stretching, sighing, yawning, and a general feeling among the group of wanting and needing to get back home, to eat, to rest, to nurse wounds and digest the day’s insane events. It was a feeling I didn’t share, and judging by Lincoln’s nervous fidgeting, neither did he.

“What are you thinking?” I asked him quietly, positioning myself at his side.

“We need to check in on Adam before we go home or do anything else.” He made no attempt to keep his own voice quiet.

“What is going on with Adam?” asked Harper. “You said he got a piece of Pitch in his mind, you said he couldn’t trust his power, but like … What? What does any of that mean? Why did it take so long for us to notice it?”

Lincoln looked around at all of us and undid the hidden zipper that attached the neck and head part of his bodysuit to the rest. He pulled off his mask slowly, revealing sweaty skin and greasy hair. Underneath the mask he looked impatient, exhausted, and more than anything, worried.

He took a deep breath. “I’m only going to lay this out once, so please try to keep up.” He held up a hand at his sister, who looked about to interrupt. She cast her gaze down and remained silent. “Adam used his power to get inside Pitch’s mind, right? And when he did so, he said he severed something, some integral mental connection between Peter’s mind and whatever alien thing is placed inside Hyperhumans’ brains by the orbs. The effect was that Pitch—Peter—was effectively rendered human by that act. But I posit that Adam didn’t just sever the connection, as he believes.”

“He removed the whole piece,” said Jaleel, with horrified comprehension in his voice.

Lincoln shrugged. “It’s just a theory, but yeah. I think that piece needed somewhere to go, and it jumped to Adam’s brain through the telepathic link. I think it lay dormant there for a little while, slowly trying to manipulate his thoughts to make him more volatile and reckless. It had imprinted some of Pitch’s worst tendencies onto itself and those carried over.”

“And you don’t think he should use his power because that piece could multiply and spread.”

All around us crickets chirped and the sun’s pink glow faded and the pinprick lights of long-dead stars erupted into existence one-by-one overhead. It was a beautiful, warm, cloudless night, and I felt cold to the core of my being.

“Yes, but not just that. Its influence could make even an ordinary human dangerous, but someone with Adam’s power … But yeah, I’m mostly afraid it could end up infecting other people if he uses his power on them, if it hasn’t already. We should all consider our own thoughts and motivations over the last few weeks very carefully, and keep an eye on each other. If there’s anything, and I mean anything you think is out of the ordinary, about your own behavior or anyone else’s, please bring it up to the group.” Lincoln let out a long sigh, as if he considered the matter closed, and the only thing to do now was to track down Adam and figure out what to do about it.

He also spoke with such an air of authority that I almost wanted to challenge him on everything he was saying, even though I agreed with him. He had a way of doing that.

I thought about mentioning my own forays into Dallas, but I reconsidered. It would have been nice, a relief almost, to blame the more violent of my outbursts during my costumed vigilantism on some outside influence, but I knew myself well enough to know that that was all me.

The five of us stood around in silence for a few minutes, no doubt considering everything we’d done in the last few weeks with an air of caution and suspicion. Finally, Shannon broke the spell.

“I wanted to have a shower, wrap myself in my fluffiest bathrobe, and go straight to bed, but I can tell we’re just getting started, so if anyone wants to come in and get comfortable while we talk, feel free.”

“I need to phone my parents,” said Harper.

“Already taken care of,” said Linc. “I sent mom and dad a message saying you were out with me. Jaleel, I hope you don’t mind, but I sent your parents a message that said you were studying with Harper at the library. Shannon, I sent a message to your parents that appeared to be from your boss, requesting that you come in for an emergency overnight shift. Christine, I —”

“Don’t you dare send fake messages to make excuses for my being late. I can explain myself to my parents just fine.”

“I was just about to say, I didn’t send your parents anything, because I figured you’d want to handle it yourself.”

“Oh,” I said. “Well … thank you.” Again, although I agreed with what he’d done, and could see the necessity in it, his presumptuousness made me want to hit him.

“My parents don’t even know Harper,” said Jaleel. “And when did you do all this?”

“Just now,” said Linc, showing us the phone he held nonchalantly in the hand behind his back. “And no, they don’t, but they’ll Google her—they already have, in fact—and what they’ll find are several articles in the school newspaper about her many academic and athletic achievements. They’ll be happy to see you’re making friends with the right sort of people.”

Harper giggled. “Academic achievements, huh? Well, I guess I must be a pretty good student to be studying at the library before the school year’s even started.”

“Uncharacteristic for you, maybe,” said Jaleel, “but that is exactly the sort of thing I’d do. And they’d expect me to spend time with like minded individuals. I’m not psyched about you not telling us first, though,” he gave Lincoln a decidedly unimpressed look.

We made our way inside, and I tried to work out what the hell I would tell my parents to explain why I’d been gone all day and still wasn’t home yet. The truth is, though, that they usually didn’t ask about such things. In the wake of what had happened to my sister, most parents probably would have locked down their remaining daughter, keeping her on a short leash and a strict schedule and never letting her be out of touch for long. My parents had taken the opposite approach, allowing me to live my life, to cherish whatever time I was allotted on this earth. For the first few years after, I’d assumed their indifferent attitude was because they didn’t care, because the daughter they’d really loved was gone now anyway, so why try to protect the other one?

But it wasn’t that, I’d realized eventually. They had just realized how short life was, and how precious. They gave me the lessons, and the tools, and they trusted that I would understand the warning of my sister’s death well enough to protect myself. And then they let me do my thing.

I both loved and hated them for it.

As we arranged ourselves on various pieces of furniture around the living room and Shannon got to grabbing glasses and a pitcher of lemonade from the fridge, pieces of costumes were cast aside haphazardly. A mask that would get in the way of drinking was thrown on a table here, a sharp bit of armor that hurt to sit on was thrown into a corner there.

I envied Harper for the fact that all she had to do was shift her face and body back into their usual shape to assume her civilian identity. Curiously, though, she didn’t look exactly like herself. She was different, somehow. Thinner, maybe? Her bones more pronounced, her cheeks a little redder, her complexion a little smoother. I chalked it up to a few days without adequate sleep or nutrition. I probably didn’t look like myself, either. But it nagged at my mind nonetheless, because Harper didn’t look exhausted or malnourished; she looked, if anything, better than ever.

Not fair, I thought, resenting her a little.

“For what it’s worth,” I said, cutting through the contended silence broken only by sighs and sips and the clink of ice cubes against glass, “I don’t think Adam would dip into our minds often enough or deeply enough to have infected us with this … thing.”

It might have been wishful thinking, but I believed it. And I knew that Adam would certainly never intentionally hurt any of us.

“I agree,” said Lincoln, surprising me. “We’re probably being overly cautious. The risk of his power having spread the influence of the piece of Pitch seems unlikely. The more pressing concern is the effect it’s had on him. He hasn’t been acting like himself, and it’s been getting worse. What he did today in New York was … Well, let’s just say I’ve never seen him like that before. He was decisive, he was direct, and those things are unlike Adam enough, but he was also violent, unhinged.”

“Brigadier said his skin and eyes actually changed color,” said Harper. Her shiver as she spoke was contagious and I found a small tremble pass through my own body. It was a horrible thought, that the Adam we all knew might be so under the influence of this thing that it was affecting him not just mentally but physically. It felt like it was taking him over.

“I never thought I’d say it,” I said, “but I prefer the timid, indecisive Adam.”

There were nods and murmurs of agreement.

“So the question is: what do we do about it?” asked Jaleel.

“It’s late, and he’s more than likely at home in bed. If he listened to me at all, he’s been lying low and staying out of trouble since he got back to Texas, limiting his use of his power, or ideally not using it at all.” Lincoln spoke with something odd in his voice, like a laugh was trying to surface. It was so unlike his characteristic self-serious overly-intellectual tone that I found myself wanting to laugh, too.

“What’s funny?” I asked, grinning and not knowing why.

“I said, ‘if he listened to me at all’,” said Lincoln, actually laughing now. “But Adam doesn’t listen to me. Like ever.”

Harper laughed, too, but her voice was grim when she spoke again. “So we should definitely wrap this up and go check on him, huh?”

“I can take someone in my car,” said Shannon. Then, sighing deeply, she added, “I already miss having someone who can teleport us around.”

——————

Arriving at Adam’s house and seeing all the lights still on in the middle of the night was our first clue that something had gone wrong. Hearing the shouting voices from within was clue number two. The final sign that what we were walking into was not at all what we were hoping to was the strange man sitting on the step outside, cringing at the volume of the voices within and keeping his eyes on the ground at his feet.

“Who’re you?” asked Harper as we approached the man. He jumped to his feet, startled, and I had a strong suspicion he’d been nodding off before we approached. His jumpiness told me something, too, namely that he was expecting trouble, or that he’d recently gone through a lot of it and his body and mind hadn’t quite returned to equilibrium yet. I could relate. I think we all could.

I remembered I’d also been jumpy like that, in the weeks after my sister died. ‘PTSD’ was what the therapist my parents made me go to had labeled it, and the label fit. But I’d never been able to shake the guilt that I should feel so shaken up by my trauma, when it didn’t even begin to compare to what my sister had been through.

I must have looked distant, my eyes vacant, because Harper nudged my shoulder and gave me a look that said ‘you good?’ I nodded and tried to smile, then turned my attention back to the present.

The man was dark-skinned, almost as dark as Jaleel, although I didn’t think he’d been born with skin that naturally dark. He had dreadlocks and a beard and huge glasses, and his wide eyes behind thick frames made him look even more skittish than he probably was.

“I’m, uh … Oneiros, but … God, that sounds so stupid. I’m Christos, Christos Papadopoulos.”

“That doesn’t really tell us anything,” said Harper. “None of us know who that is.”

“I could just as easily ask who all you are … But honestly, it’s been a long day, so I’ll just say: I guess you could call me a friend of Adam and his sister. If you’re here to hurt them, you’ll have to go through me.” He looked more indignant than afraid now, and with his hair and beard unkempt and askew and his wide eyes darting this way and that, he looked almost feral. “Please tell me you’re not here to hurt them, though, because I’ve already been through some shit today, and I’m not looking to get into any more fights.”

After a few moments of bewildered contemplation, Jaleel was the first of us to speak. “I’m Jaleel, or Foresight, if you prefer.”

“Why are you telling this stranger your real name?” asked Lincoln, rather rudely I thought.

“Oh settle down, he told us his name, and I believe he’s a friend of Adam’s,” said Harper. “So are we, by the way. Friends of Adam’s, I mean. I’m Harper, or Mimic.”

“You’re all Hypes, then?” asked the man.

Yes, we confirmed, and the rest of us told him our names, both real and Hype. Lincoln went last, and only after a lot of intense eye contact with Shannon that apparently ended with her winning their silent argument.

“And how is it that you came to be on Adam’s porch while he and his sister and his parents are arguing inside in the middle of the night?” I asked after all the introductions were made.

“It’s kind of a long story,” he replied with a sigh. “It’s probably better if we let Adam explain it. Suffice it to say, the three of us fought against some nightmare creatures that emerged from Angie’s mind, including a giant worm with her face, and that sort of thing tends to bond people together a bit.”

“You fought a … You … What?” exclaimed Harper.

“Like I said,” he replied, “it’s a long story.”

“What are they arguing about in there?” I asked.

“I imagine his parents are a bit mad about the fact that he’s been living a dangerous secret life as a Hype, and that his actions caused bits of a superpowered villain to get stuck inside his impressionable younger sister’s brain, only for them to emerge inside a dreamlike pocket universe to claim their independence and try to kill their creators.” He said all this without a hint of humor, only a weary resignation, and a bit of impatience, like he couldn’t believe we weren’t catching on more quickly.

At the mention of the bits that got stuck in Angie’s brain, we all exchanged knowing glances. So Lincoln’s worst case scenario had come to pass after all. And when I thought about it, I wasn’t the least bit surprised it had happened to Angie. I knew he’d be tempted to use his power to try to fix the depressive state she was in, but I hadn’t wanted to believe he’d actually do it.

“Again, and I can’t stress this enough,” said Harper, “What. The. Fuck? We’re just moving on from giant worm with Angie’s face?”

Oneiros shrugged and yawned. With his face turned up toward the light, I saw his myriad scars and scratches and bruises. Whatever he’d been through, it had been violent.

The voices inside had waned in intensity and volume as we’d been outside chatting, and at Harper’s latest interjection, the front door opened and there was Adam, looking for all the world like he’d been expecting us.

“Wasn’t sure how quickly you guys would wrap things up in New York. Sorry, Linc, had to ignore your advice. Angie was in trouble.”

“We’ve gathered that much,” said Lincoln. “But what exactly happened?”

“You guys had better come in. Cat’s out of the bag, by the way. I didn’t tell my parents about any of you guys, but they can probably put two and two together. They honestly floated the idea of grounding me, if you can believe that. They actually did attempt to ground Ange, until I told them I needed her help to finish our mission and get her mind back to normal.”

“Your mission?” I asked. “What mission?”

He didn’t answer, but I hadn’t really expected him to.

We made our way through the hall connecting his front door to the T.V. room at the back of the house, passing the kitchen and dining room on the way, where his parents were seated in silence, hardly looking at us as we passed by.

“I’ll need your help, too, by the way,” he said as we entered the room where his sister was sleeping, sitting up on a couch, her head on her chest and a drool bubble forming at the corner of her lips. “And more importantly, she needs your help.”

“What’s the plan?” asked Jaleel.

“The pieces of Pitch that I stole have to be returned to where they belong. The only problem is —”

“We have no idea where Pitch currently is,” finished Lincoln. “But I can probably help with that.”