Heroes of Global Warming-1
744 Words
Heroes of Global WarmingFreeze-Dry, Floater, and Bottlenose catch up with me near the Times Square Sea, itching to bring me in after what I did to their buddy, Sunblock. Never mind that I used to be their buddy, too, a long time ago. Back before I went from being a superhero...
...to kicking superheroes' asses. Not that Freeze-Dry and his pals think they're the ones about to take a beating. Not when they've got me outnumbered three to one like this.
"Stand down, Skillet!" Freeze-Dry skates up on an elevated track of frozen water vapor, ten feet above the lapping waves of Times Square Sea. The track expands forward as he skates, responding to his freeze-inducing powers. "I won't tell you twice!"
"You heard the man!" Floater swoops up like a deflating balloon and holds steady at twenty feet away from me, drifting past the ruined buildings of the Square on the late morning air currents. His voice sounds like a cartoon chipmunk's, like he's just sucked a lungful of helium. "Don't make us hurt you."
Bottlenose, who's half man, half dolphin, spins up from the water below and triggers his antigravity harness, joining the rest of us hovering in midair. His gleaming gray head bobs as he lets loose a stream of clicking dolphin language, which I don't understand.
So now I'm surrounded. The forces of justice encircle me in the heart of the sunken city of New York, drowned five years ago by the rising sea levels of global warming.
The lights of Times Square are long dead. The giant screens on which videos once played for throngs of tourists are gray and shattered; even the highest is half-submerged.
Maybe if I didn't remember what this place used to be like, it wouldn't make me sick to the stomach now. The same goes for the whole damn world these days. Rising temperatures, rising sea levels, crazy weather. Manhattan has turned to s**t, and the whole planet has gone with it.
The smell of salt water and dead sea life fills the air. The city is mostly deserted, but a few spectators weave between towers in sputtering motorboats. They know the score.
There can be only one outcome. The three noble heroes will defeat me in battle and take me in. My year-long struggle is at an end; Earth's most wanted is goin' down.
At least that's what they think.
I hang there a moment, held aloft by the pillar of rising steam gushing up from the water below. My powers keep the steam flowing, generated by the waves of intense heat I radiate.
Turning slowly in my red-orange costume trimmed with flames, I give each of my former pals a long stare from behind my red-tinted goggles. Bottlenose chatters some more and flips me the bird with one of his hybrid flipper/hands. His purple harness bears the insignia of America's premiere super-team, the Castigators: a stylized letter "C" that looks like it's been sculpted out of ice.
Floater, also purple-clad with the Castigators' emblem on his chest, looks like a human water-skimmer. His pipe-cleaner body flutters on errant breezes; he floats on his caved-in belly like he's part of a mobile, dangling over an infant's crib.
Then there's Freeze-Dry. "Well, Skillet?" He's got a good-sized paunch these days, filling out his silver parka. Global warming has been good to him; lots of demand for a guy who can cool things off with a wave of his hands. "Going to come quietly and answer for what you've done?"
Not as much demand for someone like me, though. Someone who's all about the heat. "Funny thing, Rick." Reaching up, I run an orange-gloved hand over my bright red shock of hair. "I was just going to ask you the same question."
"No civilian names!" Freeze-Dry swings up both hands, pointing all twelve of his fingers right at me. "You're not one of us any more."
"Sure I am." I nod and give him a wiggling double thumbs-up. "Once a Castigator..."
"Don't even joke!" says Floater in his helium chipmunk voice. "Not after what you did to Sunblock!"
The three of them move in a little when he mentions that. I can see how there'd be some hard feelings.
But the fact is, there's something they don't know. Something that puts a different spin on the whole mess.
"Listen." I pump out a little more heat to push them back again. "You'll never know how much I didn't want to hurt Sunblock."
"You didn't let it stop you, did you?" squeaks Floater, and Bottlenose chatters in agreement.
"But it wasn't supposed to be that way." The fire of regret wells up within me, followed by the fire of pain. "I didn't have any choice."
- Writer
