Chương 19: Me Thinks The Lady Doth Protest Too Much

Waking up from passing out starts off like trying to find a radio station- mostly just static as your ears slowly wake up and with the occasional strange voice coming in and out. It's even worse when your brain is coming back from certain death and can barely process anything it hears.

"What were you trying to do, huh? Pretty stupid to try to rob a police officer in broad daylight."

"I… I wasn't. I don't know what happened-""Oh yeah? Maybe you can figure it out when I take you down to the precinct."

"No, no, you don't understand! I didn't put my hand in your pocket, someone else did-""Listen, miss, you're not going to like the criminal psych ward anymore than lockup. I'm going to need you to drop the act and put your hands behind your back."

"I mean it! Weird things were happening and I thought it was just me, but-" I would try to get up, try to casually walk away. But the thing about having your head cracked open like an egg is that it can no longer tell your legs to move. A small voice spoke not far from where I laid.

"Mommy, I saw that girl disappear."

"Who?"

"The girl on the ground." Oh crap.

"What do you mean disappear?"

"She was walking and then she disappeared real quick, and then she was on the other side of the police man and she fell down." Something was blocking the light which was unfortunate because I had really liked how the sun's rays had felt warming my back.

"Hey, you alright?" It sounded like the police officer was right next to me. I raised my head then immediately clonked it back down, which wasn't helpful for my current lobotomy at all. My eyelids still protested working.

"Yes, m'okay. Jes' noseblood."

"It was her, see? The little girl said it. She can disappear. She's been stealing things from me for the last twenty minutes!"

"What things?"

"Well, it's… they were personal and…" There was the sound of boots crunching on the pavement and then the policeman's voice came from the left side of me.

"Can you tell me again what you saw, little girl?" She had to be only six or seven from the way her voice stumbled over some of the words.

"The girl with the purple hair was walking fast from over there, and she got close to you, then… maybe she didn't disappear, but she was really fast. Then she was on the other side of you and I didn't see her run to get there. Then she fell to the ground." The pain was starting to ease and by that I mean, my head went from being crushed with a bulldozer to a nice regular sedan. Definitely an upgrade, but still pretty bad.

"Excuse me?" Anime Enthusiast had made his way over as well, apparently. His voice was gentler than you'd expect from a man of his side.

"I think I have some information that might help."

"What's that?"

"I thought I had experienced a fated Dojikko girl encounter, but my wallet is missing and I think this girl is actually a Sukeban." His voice might be quiet and small, but he pulled out all the stops to try and pronounce those two words with all the authority of a Daimyo. There was a pause from the police officer.

"... Son, I have no idea what you just said, but I think I heard 'missing wallet'?"

"I just checked my pockets and noticed that I'm missing my wallet. That girl with the hat bumped into me just before and I think she might have stolen it from me." There were sounds of a scuffle and some expletives shouted into the air, but eventually the police officer asked laboriously, as if he was having a hard time holding on to the suspect.

"What's your name?"

"Gabe Newell Jr."

"Well, that's the name on the card. Sounds like you were the one stealing things, miss- not her."

"She's a super! The little girl saw it. She was taking things from me. You have to take her in!" I felt a hand shake my shoulder.

"Got anything you want to say, miss?" My head rolled up a little enough to say, "The hippies are in on it, too." There was a moment of silence before a sudden crash of bongos, flutes, triangles, and running feet filled the air.

"Here's your wallet back, sir."

"I follow the way of the Samurai- the Bushido code or 'way of the warrior'- and will bear a lifetime debt to you unless I repay you a kindness now. Please accept one… no better make it two hundred dollars as a representation of my gratitude."

"I would love to take that, I really would. But I am not allowed bribes of any kind by law, so you keep that to go find a Japanese wife, robot, pillow or something."

"Then I suppose I am indebted to you, young kanojo." I felt paper- cash, I assume- placed into my hand. I finally opened my eyes to see a couple hundred dollar bills in my fist. I gaped up at him. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"How are you so rich?" The words mumbled out of my mouth.

"Don't you live in your mom's basement?" Richie Rich raised an eyebrow.

"I live in my father's mansion. He invented Steam." Even with the brain hemorrhage, this made no sense.

"Oh sure, just like my grandma invented ice, but we've never gotten a dollar from it." Gabe Jr. turned to the police officer with a concerned look on his face.

"I think kanojo will need a great healer." The policeman rolled his eyes and sighed. I bet the catchphrase of Danny Glover from Lethal Weapon was ringing through his mind.

"Guess I better." He talked into his radio about needing a paramedic. The crowd was staring at me, and their heads were starting to swirl together, but I had to try to conceal my identity.

"I'm not a super, I'm a zero," I sighed. Then I fainted. —-------- When I opened my eyes, a woman's freckled face was hovering over me. I was lying on my left side which was not how I fainted. A crowd was still looming over me so hopefully that meant I wasn't out for long.

"She's awake. You okay? How are you feeling?" My thoughts were able to form without a massive supernova exploding behind my eyes, so that seemed like an improvement. I tried lifting myself up on one arm. Mission accomplished.

"I'm better." The cash was still clutched in my hand so I folded it and stuffed it into a front pocket. The woman with red hair tied back in a tight bun took out a flashlight and shined it into my eyes.

"No more dizziness? Any nausea?"

"Strangely, no." If a code red meant I would erupt vomit over everyone, I felt only at about a code yellow. Not great, not terrible. She helped me sit up properly, lifting my chin and pressing two fingers into an artery.

"Any shortness of breath, trouble seeing?"

"No, no, I'm really starting to feel almost normal." She looked to the police officer.

"Pulse is normal. Your nosebleed has stopped. Is there any reason why you might have fainted?" I swallowed, taking some time to check under my nose. My fingers touched the dried crunchy blood stuck to my skin.

"I didn't eat a lot today. Um, trying out that whole intermittent fasting thing." She raised an eyebrow, probably sending a message that she didn't think I weighed enough. I lifted a hand to explain.

"I hear it can make you live forever." She nodded, looking like she wanted to prescribe me some sanity pills.

"I see. Well, maybe try it out at home first. Or you know, don't do it at all." Her legs shifted and she rose up to stand. She went over to the police officer and he looked at me, nodding his head while she spoke too quietly for me to hear. The crowd murmured, continuing to stare. Some guy munched on a giant corndog while grinning and others' phones flashed as they took pictures of me. This was why we needed to stop all zoos.

"Alright, alright." Officer Sikorsky, now that I could read his name tag, sauntered over and crouched down on his legs in front of me. He was a big burly guy with a thick mustache that was probably ideal in the 1800s.

"Jenny over there says you're fine and normally you'd be good to go, but since we've had an accusation of unregistered super activity, we've got to follow up on that. So we're going to take you down to the precinct and ask you some questions." I wasn't a code red for nausea, but I was for hyperventilation. My eyes looked down, trying to keep my face nonchalant.

"I can explain what happened here, there's no need to take me in." Sikorsky shook his head.

"This is the protocol, miss. Let's get you in the car. Can you stand on your own?" I slowly pushed my hands on the ground to stand up, trying to think. There was no way I could pause time long enough to make a getaway, and if I tried, that would be pretty clear evidence against me. Maybe I could hide amongst the crowd, but most likely they would ruin it by trying to snap selfies with me. I could run to a car, but they were all six seconds away.

Oh yeah, and let's not forget, judging by what just happened, I'd probably die if I used my power again so soon. Pretending to be normal, trying to cover up the truth, was the only chance I had. My backpack, where my stun baton and smoke bomb lay nestled inside, still sat on the ground where I had been sitting watching the crowd before. I couldn't go retrieve it; they'd check inside and see that I just happened to be carrying some pretty big defense weapons.

Sure, I could give the same excuse of needing them for walking home at night, but given the circumstances, it was only going to make me look more guilty. I still had a purple wig on and the sock mask burning in my pocket. This was Millenium Park in Chicago; it was a wonder my backpack hadn't been stolen already. So essentially leaving it here now meant saying goodbye forever. But better to say goodbye to my weapons than potentially my freedom. I stood up, slightly wobbling, and shrugged my shoulders.

"Okay," I said in my best teenage ambivalence tone, raising my hands to be cuffed.

"Take me in." Sikorsky looked at me pointedly.

"You're not under arrest, you're being taken in for questioning."

"So I don't have to go?" I asked hopefully.

"You could refuse." His head tilted to the side.

"But then we'd follow you home and ask you questions there. So you might as well come now." Wait a second, I was forgetting about a very important thing: my infamy.

"Listen," I sighed, pausing as if I was about to admit something embarrassing.

"My name is Cass Keene. I got into a big car accident when I was five years old and I didn't get any super powers from it. Anyone at my school could tell you about all about it in great detail. You can look up the accident on your phone right now- the Chicago Tribune had an article about it. And that way we could save all of us the long drive to the police station." Gasps rang out through the crowd as everyone lifted their phones and began typing.

"O. M. G. she's right!"

"Bless her heart, that is so sad."

"I don't know why she would even keep living."

"There- she's right there! I found her on this unpowered list for Chicagoans. Right under Oprah." Pringles Mustache looks at me with pursed lips for a long while.

"Protocol is protocol, miss. And if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to worry about, don't ya?" He extended a hand out in the gesture of 'ladies first' and I started walking. Pickpocket, handcuffed hands behind her back and yelling about needing to see her lawyer, was being walked by another cop and we were making our way to a police car. I swung my hands out back and forth as I walked, using one of the backward motions to snatch the sock mask from my pocket.

It stayed balled in my fist until Sikorsky turned his head to say something to his partner and then I dropped it on the side facing away from them. The other cop turned around and the hair stood up on my arms, but it turned out he was just stretching his back. They continued talking about how nice the weather was, so I assumed my destruction of evidence was a success. They said I wasn't being arrested, but I still had to sit in the back with the actual criminal.

She was giving me the stink eye and smelled like she needed a bath starting last week. That's why she had hippies for friends.

"I know you did something," she said, glaring at me.

"Not exactly keeping yourself incognito with your purple hair though, are you?" A thief would try to insult someone for not looking inconspicuous enough. My face turned confused.

"Are you not from here? Pretty sure thirty percent of the local population has some type of crayon-colored hair." I leaned close to whisper.

"I think it's something in the water." She gave me a withering stare.

"Whatever you are, it's certainly not normal. And they're going to find that out." I put a hand to my chest, another to my cheek.

"Aww, thank you. You don't know how long I've been waiting to get an official diagnosis. I feel so seen." She turned away to look out her window, muttering angrily. Sikorsky watched us in the rearview mirror. I sat back, folded my arms together, and made plans.