Superheroine, Pt. 2: Second Chances

“Darwin, I don’t know about this. You keep telling me to hit distant things with the boomerang and I keep missing the shit I’m aiming for. What makes you think I can hit a moving target like that pigeon and, for fuck sake, why exactly a pigeon? It’s a harmless animal, it didn’t hurt me!” She complains quite thoroughly into her phone though no one is on the other end. This is her new normal, ever since she had stuck a needle of liquid artificial intelligence into her arm thinking it was heroin at a high school party. Now she has a snarky, male disembodied voice in her brain bugging her to death at all hours of the day and night. If there was ever a good deterrent to get off of drugs real quick and never take them again, it is this.

Because, my dear Violet, you were able to strike at a man’s hand while he was holding a grenade as he was standing at least a couple of yards away from you. As far as inexperienced superheroines go, that’s an impressive feat to pull off and I want to see if you can do it again without the added adrenaline pumping through your veins. The voice she had recently dubbed Darwin, because it seemed reasonable to call a virtual supercomputer within her mind that name, tells her in his tone that makes it seem like he always has a stick up his ghostly ass.

“I thought we talked about you calling me ‘my dear?’ It’s seriously predatory. Just because you’ve been in my head for a week doesn’t mean we know each other like that. And that thing with the bank robber was probably just a fluke, anyway, D.” She says with a shrug she forgets he cannot see, referring to her very first act as a superheroine by stopping a trio of robbers making off with money from a downtown bank branch, of which the name escaped her now. She hears Darwin somehow make a derisive snort.

If I am not allowed to call you "my dear," then there is no way I am letting you bestow me a nickname like "D." Anyway, of course, it was just luck that you were able to do it the first time around. No one should be able to do what you did. So, as is said, practice makes perfect, even if I am helping you out in the matter. He says almost crabbily at first, before seeming to calm down. She wonders if it’s because he is actually “upset” she demanded he not give her a term of endearment this early on in their odd friendship and a bit of guilt blooms up into her stomach despite the absurd idea AI could get agitated. It might be something she needs to file in the folder of “Things to Ask Darwin” for later.

“So, you’re basically telling me that all of your fancy talk about pumping up my abilities to Godlike levels was a complete crapshoot? Good to know. Thanks so much for lying.” She prods at him gently, not above calling him out on his shit even though she still feels bad for snapping at him for giving her a moniker. Darwin scoffs, satisfying her that he seems to have the gall to be at least a little offended at the insinuation she’s making.

Violet, nobody can get by on simple gumption and enhancing AI alone. Even the volunteer soldiers I was inserted into in the lab where I was created had to work hard to finetune new skills, which included their aim. He says matter-of-factly. She thinks on this and decides he has a good point, even if the notion sounds super annoying and boring.

“Okay, fine. We’ll keep trying it your way.” She finally concedes and she abruptly has a wave of mollification wash over her. It occurs to her that she’s at last pacified Darwin to some small extent.

Thank-you. You won’t regret it in the end – especially when your precision eventually becomes deadly enough to kill a threat or criminal with that boomerang. Darwin says without any preamble. Her ears perk as she just barely detects that last part of his sentence to her.

“Wait – what was that final bit of what you just said?” She challenges him in a hard tone, but a picture of a waving hand in front of a partly cloudy sky flashes across her brain, signaling that Darwin is ready to start lecturing again on the outstanding points of target practice.

Alright, girl, as much as I hate to agree that you are correct, we probably do want to start with something less mobile than a pigeon. Find a remote sign somewhere. A stop sign. A yield sign. Any will do. He instructs her and she decides it is probably best to just listen to “His Highness” and goes indoors to ask of her adoptive mother, Carol Lynn, if she could barrow the car for a quick drive. Carol Lynn says it’s fine but to at least be back by dinner and she promises that she will, running out the door and snatching the keys from the hall table.

The car is a 90’s era Toyota of an indiscriminate brown. The parents had the fancier, black SUV. The Toyota was gifted to her when she turned sixteen, being promised by Jason, Carol Lynn’s husband, that if she took good care of it, she would get a much better automobile later on. She supposes she cannot complain too much as she unlocks it swiftly and hops deftly into the driver’s side.

This is a death trap. Darwin suddenly quips as it takes the engine a couple of times to turn over. His deadpan remark is followed by a few pictures of nuclear explosions dancing through her head. She huffs and goes ahead to pull out of the driveway to begin her search for a sign out of the way from everything resembling civilization.

She is super glad it is a Saturday so she has no school, because locating a sign far enough away from prying eyes turns out more trouble than it is almost worth. Fortunately, she does come eventually to a rusted and whitened stop sign at a four-way intersection surrounded by tons and miles upon miles of trees on every side. She settles the car to a halt at the shoulder and stares out the dust-speckled windshield.

“Will this work, Your Majesty?” She asks sarcastically. After a second or two, an emoji of a hand giving a thumbs-up appears in front of her eyes.

It’s perfect from top to bottom. Darwin says like the old man he secretly is, and she rolls her eyes a second time before getting out and making sure no cars came barreling by before crossing the road. But Darwin speaks up again just before she sets foot on the cracked asphalt. No! Stay here. This distance is quite suitable. She groans in slight agitation at being told what to do but does what he asks.

“Yes, Master.” She says peevishly and ignores the next flash of a movie scene she doesn’t recognize in her mind of an older man bestowing disapproving furrowed brows unto her. “What exactly would you like me to do here?” She finishes, using a nail to pick her teeth.

Fetch the boomerang from the car and throw it precisely so it hits the middle of the O in "STOP" on that sign over there. Darwin commands her simply, as if this should have been the most natural conclusion for her to draw by them being here, which in all honesty she probably should have but whatever. She travels to the rear passenger door on the car on the driver’s side and picks the boomerang off the back seat. She slams the door and goes back to lean on the front of the Toyota again. She switches her stare from the boomerang now fisted in her right hand, up to the stop sign, and back again.

“Okay, so do I get into some kind of stance or…” She trails off, unsure.

Legs apart. Feet planted. Knees bent. Darwin advises her in a half amused, half tired voice that suggests she has asked a similar question before and his answer had always been the exact same. Nevertheless, she does as advised and, after taking a few moments to line up her throw exactly right and digging in deep to bring forth her strength and power, she chucks it hard – and the boomerang sails about as fast a military jet could fly straight over the sign’s top. She unbends her knees and straightens up as she observes the flight path of the boomerang all while it spins farther and farther away.

“Umm… Think it’ll come back?” She hesitantly inquires of Darwin, who just shows her a flash of an annoyed emoji.

Thankfully, as any good boomerang should, it does eventually come rushing back to her, but she has to go combing through the woods across from where she is parked to find it again.

They spend about an hour and half here, with her tossing the boomerang as vigorously as she can and nearly every single time, she misses. She gets frustrated frequently, even once accidentally slamming a tight fist down on top of the Toyota’s hood and causing the panic alarm to go off. It is a miracle that she does not manage to damage the engine as well, as Darwin snidely pronounces as much.

You are thinking much too heavily on this, Violet. It needs to be given just the right amount of thought and then you handle the rest almost as an afterthought. It should be almost like a meditation. He tells her in an infuriatingly soothing voice that nearly makes her want to punch her own skull.

“Darwin, I swear to God. The last two times I lobbed the thing you told me I wasn’t thinking enough about it. PICK A LEVEL ALREADY!” The echo of her shout carries high above the treetops where it hangs about in space and scares a few robins and crows out of their nests in the canopies. Darwin blinks a concerned emoji in her brain.

Violet, I know it is discouraging not to get it right the first time but trust me. This is what you need to do… He tries to be encouraging, trading in the emoji for another movie scene of a mother petting the head of her teenage daughter as she cries lying sideways on her bed into her pillow. In retaliation, she angrily smacks the side of her head to knock the image away before snatching up the boomerang again from where it rests on the dented hood.

“Will you stop doing that, you pig! You don’t know how any of this is like! You’re supposed to help me become this powerful, strong being who can knock out a bad guy with a single hit and here I am playing with my adopted brother’s stupid, fucking boomerang! And I am not even that good at that!” In some dark corner of her mind, she realizes it is insane to be yelling out loud at herself like this, but she is beyond being able to help herself from caring she’s so fed up right now. Darwin gives her a shocked emoji, then a red-faced and angry one.

I am doing the best I can with my limited abilities, Little Miss. Besides, you stepped into this world blindly and now you want to be a hero, but even heroes must start at the beginning. You need to understand this… He tries to explain, but she’s had enough of what she sees as the same excuse over and over and over and over again.

“No, Darwin! You don’t get to do that! I had no idea what you were when I picked your needle up! No, I shouldn’t have been doing drugs in the first place, but that still doesn’t mean I am going to take any bullshit abuse from you!” She pauses her rant for second to lift up her left arm to examine the track mark bruises close to the inside of her elbow and she fingers at them with her opposite hand. “You’re supposed to guide me in getting better with these powers, but so far I haven’t seen any improvement in myself and all the things I’ve already done are beginning to seem like one in a million chances that won’t happen again. You keep bragging about how full proof the lab made you, but I am starting to think you have no idea how to train me at all!” She feels the tears leaking down her cheeks before actually coming to the realization that she is crying and somehow this makes her even more upset. For the first time in a week, she wishes to have her own head back with just her own thoughts and daydreams. She squeezes the boomerang until it aches, then suddenly winds up and hurls it towards the stop sign one more time.

“SO, JUST FUCKING SHUT UP!!”

A horrible, little squeak rings out from the direction of the sign and it snaps her out of the mounting fury inside of her just like that. Darwin pops a huge, white exclamation point and question mark together in the blackness of her mind.

I think you hit something… He points out the obvious. The stop sign’s top half has been broken off and it’s soldered itself around the edges where it was snapped. She smells smoke all the way from where she is still rooted by her car.

“Uh huh…” Is all she can think to answer. Instinct tells her to lower her gaze to where the sign’s pole enters the ground and she spots a little, brown, furry lump curled into a ball. The boomerang is several more yards down the road on the edge of the line separating the grass and asphalt. She decides she needs to investigate; she jogs quickly over to the stop sign, not even bothering to look both ways this time. When she is near enough to make out that the small bulge is a squirrel, she immediately feels the regret drop on her like a million bricks. “Oh, no…!” She whispers, setting her hands upon her knees to bend closer to try and help it, but immediately recoils in disgust and horror when she discovers she’s decapitated the poor creature. Its wound has been cauterized from the heat of the boomerang at the speed it sliced through its neck. There is barely a speck of blood on the road because of this.

All she can do now is just stand there and stare at it. She’s taken her first life. No matter how insignificant it is, she still feels sickened with herself.

My Dear…? Darwin’s voice prods the inside of her brain cautiously, forgetting he is not supposed to be using that nickname with her. She doesn’t reprimand him, though, sensing that it’s the least of her worries as she kneels by the squirrel’s tiny corpse. Following a minute or two of just looking at it, she cups her hands together and scoops it up, not bothering that it could give her a disease or something. It’s bushy tail, once curled up in an S with life five minutes before, hangs now limply from between her fingers.

Darwin gleams another white question mark.

What are you going to do with him? He asks, appearing sincerely curious.

“I’m going to bury him.” She says honestly and hikes off into the woods in front of her to do just that. She finds a suitable spot at the base of a tree to lay the squirrel down and digs a shallow hole beside with the digits of her hands. Once she’s satisfied with the depth, she moves the squirrel into it and covers the hole back up with pine needles. Afterwards, she sits back on her heels to admire her handiwork; then bends her head to ask for forgiveness from whoever is listening like she has seen Carol Lynn do. She isn’t sure if she really believes in anything, but at this moment she hopes the squirrel is happy in squirrel heaven.

Beats of time go by in which nothing is said. Darwin even refrains from talking like an asshole for the first since she acquired him and doesn’t bother her with flashes of imagery.

She sighs after a long stretch of silence.

“D, can we quit for today?” She asks plaintively but steadily, also forgetting she isn’t allowed to use that nickname for him. Darwin, however, seems to decide to let it slide with his next sentence.

Of course, Violet.

She stands, brushes off the dirt and stray pine needles sticking to her bare knees, and heads back for the road. She emerges from the trees right next to her boomerang, so she gathers it up solemnly and trudges back to the car – both her and Darwin keeping quiet. She knows she has to call in the halved stop sign to the police or something because it could be a road hazard, but she wants desperately to just do it later. She gets behind the steering wheel, slams her door closed, then merely…sits…and stares…

Violet. It was an accident. They happen and this is what practice is for – to iron those out. Will you trust me from now on? She still keeps her mouth shut for just a few minutes more.

But at last:

“Alright, D. You win. I get it now.” Darwin shows her a blushing, smiling emoji.

Good. Let’s get you home then. She nods at her windshield, puts the Toyota in gear, then peels outta there; refusing to look back.

End