I astralled back over to the Latina girl I had rescued, popping in ten feet away so as not to startle her. Asking, “Are you OK?”, I crouched down next to her.
She sniffled, but nodded. “What’s your name?” I inquired.
“Gabriela.”
“Well, Gabriela, you’re safe now. I’m sorry you had to go through that, but those men won’t bother you or Glory or anyone else again. Today, it wasn’t your time – but it was theirs.”
She swallowed and nodded, still overwhelmed.
“OK, are you able to get yourself home from here, or can I help?”
“I live just down the street; I’ll be OK.” She began to regain some composure.
“Great – one last question – I am looking for Glory too, to warn her about some other bad people – can you help me find her?”
In that moment I saw fear blossom again within her, and she hesitated. Suddenly I realized I didn’t need her help; the answer had been in front of me all along. “Actually, Gabriela, you don’t have to tell me, I just figured out how to find her. Your loyalty to Glory is very special; I’m sure she knows what a good friend you are. If you can keep being her friend, she’s going to need you a lot along the way.”
Gabriela looked up at me and smiled; like the sun breaking through heavy clouds. “She’s my girl.” she said.
“You’re a good friend. Don’t be afraid to let Glory know if you need her help too, because that lets her be a friend right back.” She smiled widely.
“Well, Gabriela, I’ve got to go. I’m very happy to make your acquaintance.” I took her hand, and on impulse brought it to my lips, like in old movies. She smiled shyly.
I stood back up and was about to walk away when she said, “Mister – what is your name?”
Pausing and turning I grinned and replied with a laugh, “The Arbiter of life and death, but you can call me Arbiter.” I left the store, chuckling.
I walked a distance away, ducked into an alley, then pulled out my phone. I was a little embarrassed I hadn’t thought of this sooner, but lucky for Gabriela that I didn’t. I pulled up the video of Glory’s interview again and studied closely that living room.
Then I simply astralled there.
The living room was exactly the same. I made my way through the house invisibly, seeking Glory. The rest of the house was much like the living room: tasteful though not ostentatious. The Garcias’ decor gave the impression of people who were proud to have pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and were now enjoying the fruits of their labors, without it being too much, tasteless, or vain.
Finding no one on the first floor, I went to the second. Same thing, but there were stairs leading up to possibly an attic, so I glided up the stairs and through the door.
To my credit, I reacted pretty quickly, jerking myself right back through the door – nevertheless, the damage was done, the image of Glory lounging on her bed in underwear burned into my brain. I sighed.
I popped back in at the top of the stairs and knocked on the door. “Just a minute,” Glory said through the door, and after a moment she opened it.
She took one look at me, exploded in energy, and shot a dazzling bolt of the stuff at me with both hands.
I realized far too late what she was seeing – not just a stranger, but I was still wearing the mesh facemask. Oops.
I reacted far less quickly than she, and the bolt struck me in the center of my chest.
And did absolutely nothing.
I held up my hands in the universal sign of surrender. “I’m not here to fight, I’m a friend, another person with powers, and I have important information for you.”
Glory held her next attack back but kept her glowing hands up. The look on her face betrayed her concern that the last attack hadn’t done a thing, but she said “I don’t know you, and creeping like a stalker into my house isn’t what friends do.”
“May I remove the mask?” I asked. She nodded, still wary, and I took it off. “My name is Maxx, I’m from New Hampshire. I got powers the same way you did. And I had an assassin try to kill me. Before they failed, they let slip that they had just picked up another job in Florida. When I saw you on the news, I put two and two together and looked for you to warn you.”
She lowered her hands slightly, though not all the way, and looked me over. “You’re old.” she said.
“You thought only children could find meteorites?’ I replied, giving back as good as I’d got.
She shot a hostile look at me at being tagged a “child”, and then suddenly grinned. “Fair point, old man” she said. I grinned back at her, and lowered my hands as she lowered hers – though she kept the aura on her body. Smart girl, I thought.
“Come up,” she said, “I’m not allowed to have boys in my room, but then you aren’t a boy. It remains to be seen if you’re a man.” she said, still smiling. She turned and went back into her room. I followed.
Her room was part nerdy, part girly. She had highly graded papers and what upon closer inspection turned out to be science fair awards on the walls, and a couple of posters of scientists – Neil deGrasse Tyson and Carl Sagan – on the walls. She had a heavy pink-unicorn-based theme going too. She sat on her bed and gestured me to the chair in front of a desk, which I took. “So, you know my thing, is yours similar?” Glory asked, obviously referring to our powers.
“Not even a little. My powers are based on souls and astral energy. If I get killed – and I’ve died a LOT recently, I just become a floating invisible spirit.”
“Then what?”
“Then I can easily pop myself back into the world in a new healthy version of my body, which makes my corpse vanish when I do.”
“That’s really weird. Handy though, to be basically immortal.”
I nodded. “Listen there are two things things you should know.”
“About the assassins? I assume they killed you but you got better.”, Glory offered.
“Not about that.” I took a deep breath. “You see I can only teleport in my astral form, free of my body, and when I get to where I am going, I stay in my astral form because it’s invisible, I can pass through solid objects, and I can fly in that form too, as fast as I can think.”
“Sounds fun.”
I winced, “Not the ideal choice of words. You see, I was looking through the house for you, and I can’t physically open doors in my astral form, so I just pass through them…”
Glory caught my drift immediately, staring at me. “Get a good look, perv?” she asked, testily.
“I flew right back out the moment I saw what I saw” I stammered.
She looked at me silently for a moment, not with hostility per se, but definitely not happy either. I wasn’t sure what she was thinking.
She apparently decided she wasn’t done tormenting me, and asked, “So, did you like what you saw? Do you think I am pretty?”
“No! I mean yes! I -” I gulped and tried again, “You are a very beautiful young girl, and after you become an adult, I am sure that you will have no trouble in the ‘finding a mate’ department, even without powers being in the equation.” I took a deep breath, stopped, and wished I was anywhere but here. But I bore my punishment and waited for her reply.
She waited a beat, and then laughed, not unkindly. She waved a hand dismissively and said “I guess it’s no worse then you seeing me in my bikini, relax – but no more peeping on me!”
“Scout’s honor!” I swore.
“What was the other thing?” she asked, more at ease.
“Other thing?” my mind blanked.
She laughed again. “You said you had two things to tell me other than about the assassin?”
I remembered. “Oh yeah, when I was looking for you, I didn’t know where you lived, so I searched the neighborhood and found your friend Gabriela first.”
She stood up suddenly, “You didn’t!!” she accused, good humor vanishing.
“What? NO! I found her captured by a bunch of mobsters in a warehouse near here!”
“Is she OK?” she asked quickly as the almost-anger in her transmuted instantly into fear for her friend.
“She’s fine, I rescued her from them. And they won’t be back for more.”
“What does that mean?” Glory asked, settling back down on her bed after learning her friend was safe.
“I kind of killed them. All of them. In that gang or mob family. Everywhere.”
She looked at me, her brow furrowed. “Really?” she asked. I nodded.
“You killed the entire Halloran crime family, world-wide? How long did that take?” she asked, facetiously but uncertainly, as if hoping this was some kind of joke – but afraid it wasn’t.
“Turns out that’s one of my gifts. I was so upset with them for threatening your friend and threatening mine as well, and I just kind of willed it. I could feel over a hundred of them die in the next instant, everywhere.”
“That’s horrible.” she said, looking at me as if unsure for the first time if I was actually one of the good guys.
“I didn’t mean to do it – I mean, I didn’t know that I could – but I don’t regret it. These were really bad people, and the world is better without them in it.”
Her aura of power went out, dismissed, as she exploded at me verbally, “Who are you to decide that?!”
I didn’t waver, though I spoke quietly, even gently: “The Arbiter of life and death.”
She just stared at me for a while.
It was then I realized that I could see something different in her – or rather, there was something I couldn’t see – her soul. I looked down at my own hands as saw the familiar doubling still present there. Then I understood.
“Do you have a soul?” I asked.
“Pardon?” Glory blinked at me.
“I’m guessing you do have a soul. And yours is the only one I can’t see.”
Glory got it immediately. “My blast on the stairs – when I shot you – didn’t do anything!” She paused briefly, “Our powers don’t work on each other!”
“No, it would appear not – and I am not sure that’s a good thing or a bad one.”
A new silence descended, less uncomfortable than the first, as we thought about it. I broke the silence first. “Well, be on guard. I don’t know who it was that paid to end me, they called themselves “archangel” to the assassins, but I’m guessing you were on their hit list. Now that the public knows about you, I’m not so sure they want the heat – but stay safe and careful.”
“Always.” nodded Glory. “The assassins – dead I am guessing?”
“I let one go after making sure she would leave her profession behind – I don’t think she relishes the chance of ever seeing me again. The other one, yes, I killed him, is it not OK to kill assassins either?”
She sighed, and said “We are the powerful ones. It’s up to us to set the standard.”
“I agree,” I replied, “and I like to think I am. But something I’ve considered long before I got powers is this: sometimes you have to choose to do a small bad thing in order to do a large good thing.”
“I don’t believe the ends justify the means.” Glory flatly said.
“And that’s your call to make when it comes to you, but for me, I am not willing to indulge in keeping my hands clean if that means suffering and death for innocent others that I could have prevented, and that’s my call to make for myself. Sometimes I think we have to make a choice, whether we want to be good, or do good.”
“No thirty.” she said.
“What?”
“It’s what old-timey reporters in the west would send to their editors when there was more copy to come. Used to be in the days of the telegraph, the transmission would end with “xxx” – the roman numeral for thirty. So when a reporter wanted to let his editor know that the story was still breaking…”
“…they would type ‘no thirty’, I get it – that’s your way of saying we’re not done talking about ethics, eh?”
Glory smiled at me, no energy aura, but lots of natural warmth. “Right. And in the meanwhile, try not to kill anyone, ‘kay?”
“I’ll see what I can do.” I stood up. “Umm, when I astral travel, I have to start by leaving my body, which apparently I have to do by willing my own death first, so you’ll see my corpse here for a second or two. Don’t worry, as soon as I take my new body at the destination, the old one goes away.”
She laughed, a peal of bright sunshine. “Well, Maxx, it was an education meeting you. Thanks for helping out Gabriela, even if I don’t approve of the methods. Oh, wait one sec.” She bounded over to me, I thought to give me a goodbye hug, so I awkwardly hugged her back. It became even more awkward as I realized that she was only trying to get something out of the desk drawer behind me. She looked up at me with laughing blue eyes, head tilted, an entirely amused expression on her face. My face flamed with embarrassment as I quickly stepped away.
Glory rummaged in the drawer and came up with a pen and pad of paper, she wrote something on it, folded the paper, and handed it to me. “My new private number.” She said, still greatly enjoying my faux pas.
“Um, I need to get a new private number, I’ll give it to you when I do.” I said trying and failing at playing it cool.
“‘Kay. Bye Maxx.”
“Ah, bye.”
I astralled back home, retaking physical form almost as soon as I landed. Then I grabbed some Oreos and tried to forget being a complete doofus.