Pocketing the powder-filled bag, Heath O’Malley spotted a delicious opportunity to diffuse his worries. His troubles had mounted weekly since he’d agreed to peddle drugs at school. Despite the risks, Heath had been divvying with his buddies the free samples his dealer had intended for seeding customers.
Heath tapped the nearest member of his posse and pointed at wee Herb Weaver. Quickly, they began their familiar chant, “HERRR-bert, HERRR-bert.”
Heath smiled when he saw Herb’s lips clenching. Herb was about to get wet...
* * *
A pathetic swimmer, Herb splashed and kicked. Then he realized it was the shallow end. Heath’s gang was gone by the time he’d slogged his way out.
Mr. Fulbright arrived and launched into a tirade. Rattled and intimidated, Herb could barely unclench his lips to defend himself as the victim of a cruel prank. So, Herb marched to the office for the first time in his sixteen years of life.
After leaving numerous voice messages, Herb was near ready to thrash his phone. It was a long wait considering that his sister Emma worked nearby at Krawling Laboratories, a company in Trenton concerned with aerospace, physics, and other stuff he knew nothing about.
His sister was always frustratingly difficult to locate. She rarely answered her mobile phone. Herb recalled the administrative assistant in Emma’s department once joking that Emma would often enter the laboratory and simply vanish outright for hours.
Finally, near the end of the school day, she showed up. But by then, he was dry and could have ridden home on the bus. The car trip home was silent until Emma squished a spider on the driver side window.
“Why’d you do that?” Herb blasted, identifying with the spider unable to protect itself.
“What?” Emma asked casually, balling up the tissue full of spider guts. “What went wrong at school?”
Emma was ten years older and his legal guardian. Herb knew full well she didn’t enjoy discussing his problems. He supposed Emma, always all business, only considered it her obligation to ask.
She was a brilliant physicist. But he wasn’t bright, handsome, or good at sports; he had nothing going for him. To add insult to injury, Emma was four inches taller.
“You wouldn’t understand,” he answered frostily.
* * *
The next day, Herb wished he could disappear into thin air. It began with an onslaught of Heath’s spitballs. Consequently, Herb was clenching his lips and wincing in fright when Darlene Luvina threw a passing glance. This mortified him unspeakably.
Lovesick, he’d been pining to himself for two excruciating years. To Herb, Darlene was unquestionably perfect. He found her compassionate, brilliant, sleekly-shaped, and though even shorter than Herb, astonishingly athletic. He imagined that in another universe they’d have made a perfect match.
* * *
That night, Emma quietly observed Herb flipping channels catatonically. Though genuinely wanting to understand how he felt, Emma required his partnership. It was plainly impossible to accomplish what she wanted on her own, and Emma felt comfortable with no other option than Herb. So, Herb’s despondent daze made her hesitate only briefly.
“I need your assistance with something at work,” she said.
“Talk to your work friends,” Herb muttered, eyes never leaving the screen.
Emma frowned, finding uncomfortable the term “friends” to describe her colleagues. Her collection of friends included three college companions with whom she only spoke occasionally.
“I can’t trust anyone at work with this. No one at work knows about it. But I trust you. My little brother.”
That won his attention a bit.
“While the universe seems infinite,” she said, “truthfully, there are infinite universes, each with unique...”
Emma caught Herb’s grimace before his gaze swung back to the TV. She knew he wouldn’t understand everything, but this was important.
“Are you listening?” she persisted, then solemnly, “Herb, I’ve discovered means to transfer matter from one universe to another.” “I have no clue what you’re talking about.”
Seeking a different approach, she stepped out and returned lugging a spacesuit with a reflective coating. Herb’s jaw dropped.
“Put this on,” she said, again exiting the room.
Moments later, she dragged one in for herself. Emma showed him how to secure it. Within 20 minutes, they were suited and connected by headset.
“Why the ‘metally’ color?” Herb asked via two-way radio.
“Creates a Faraday cage. Easier to isolate transfer targets,” Emma replied, only afterwards wondering if that meant anything to him. “Voice recognition on. Set universe c=2.99792455, authorization Emma-12267.”
Readings flashed in her visor:
CURRENT_UNIVERSE:2.99792458
GO_TO:2.99792455
“Initiate,” Emma affirmed.
Immediately, they were floating in space, exactly where she’d expected. Around them, stars sparkled with unique hues of violet and green. She clutched Herb’s suit, and through his helmet, glimpsed his dumbfounded smile.
She knew she’d made an impact.
“Thrust-0.05,” Emma said.
They sped toward her cherished vessel floating nearby. Upon reaching the entryway, they crawled inside and cycled through the airlock. Once in the cabin, they removed their helmets, latching them to their suits.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“One of countless universes, each entirely different. The vessel’s name is the Griffin. I’ve spent years building this, Herb, but it’s finally ready. I first imagined it just after Mom and Dad...“
“What? When Mom and Dad what?”
Emma paused reflectively, then continued, “In college I wrote my first journal publication on using alternative universes as a means of launching spaceships without needing to escape Earth’s gravity well. That’s when Krawling Labs started recruiting me. They managed to wait until I finished graduate school. Herb, they’re trying to develop this technology. I’ve been keeping them happy by feeding them scraps, but they have no idea how far beyond them I am.“
“Where did you build this thing?”
Clutching monkey bars across the ceiling, Emma floated to the opposite wall containing the viewscreen and navigation panel. Glancing back, she watched Herb fumbling after.
“I assembled it right here in this universe. The boards for interdimensional matter transfer are behind this panel. I started building them in grad school, but that’s where all the magic is. Otherwise, the Griffin’s not much more than an airtight bucket with elementary thrusters. When you’re already in deep space, you don’t need rocketry to fight gravity or even wind resistance,” Emma explained, then mumbled, “You’d be amazed at the money in some of these projects at Krawling. They don’t pay much attention when equipment and materials disappea-”
“Umm, how’re we getting back?”
“Herb, you’re witnessing another universe and worried about getting home!? Relax. We’ll return essentially where we left. All universes are connected by spatial coordinates...”
Emma stopped when noticing his eyes roll. She stared him down to ensure he paid attention.
Turning back to the navigation panel, Emma resumed, “Our coordinates in this universe align with our home in New Jersey. When we move ten feet here, we move ten feet there. When we transfer back to our home universe, we reemerge ten feet from where we started... In fact, we’re continuing to follow the Earth’s momentum from rotation and transl-”
“Are there planets here?” Herb interrupted.
“Stars, planets, asteroids. And things that lack words. But they’re in different spatial coordinates compared to Earth. That’s why we’re in deep space.”
“Umm, Emma, this is cool, but I don’t know anything about this stuff!”
“Don’t worry; it’ll be easy. We’re going to travel from universe to universe together, Herb! Analyze the phenomena! But it isn’t a one-person job. I’m not even sure it’s a two-person job. There are going to be times when we’ll need to operate equipment in different universes simultaneously. But I’m going to teach you how to use all this stuff, and we’re going-“
“Study stars? That sounds boring.”
Emma’s head was nearly exploding. Herb was in a separate universe where the speed of light differed by 0.000001%, and all he could muster was “boring?”
More importantly, she needed help, and Herb was the only person Emma unequivocally trusted. Fortunately, she knew Herb well enough to have prepared for his reaction.
“Would you be impressed if we dashed through space and reemerged inside the Pentagon?”
“We can do that?”
“Easily, by flying the Griffin 170 miles to coordinates in this universe that correspond southward to Washington, D.C. When in precise position, we transfer back to Earth’s universe. In fact, I can transmit images between universes. You can watch the screen as we ‘travel’ through buildings.”
“Cool! Can we be, like, spies?”
“No, we’re not going to be spies! We’re studying the astrophysics of exo-universes.”
Capacity to suddenly appear anywhere on Earth was a side benefit she’d considered carefully. Sail through walls. See others without being seen. Steal, sabotage, or murder with perfect cover.
In fact, she knew Krawling Labs had also considered this carefully and that their motives for seeking to develop interdimensional travel were in no way pure. She’d overheard it discussed time and again how Krawling Labs, should the project somehow be successful, intended to sell the technology to shady governments and corporations around the world. Knowing where the contract money was coming from, Emma easily deduced that it was her own government secretly most eager to get its hands on this entirely theoretical technology. In her worst nightmares, she imagined the world in chaos.
It’d been a painful catch-22 for Emma. She wanted to see interdimensional travel realized but used for discovery and knowledge. She certainly didn’t want to help Krawling Labs invent what would be used for sinister purposes. But if she left Krawling, she’d never know how close they were to success or how the technology was being utilized. She believed that to achieve the best outcome, she should stay on the project at Krawling but skim the resources she needed to accomplish it first on her own in secret.
This topic of trust was too important to be minding the ship’s operation panel. So, she swiveled her gaze directly toward Herb.
Emma asked with sincerity, “You understand what other people might do with this technology... why I couldn’t tell anyone about it but you?”
Herb was silent. She hoped that meant he grasped her comment’s gravity.
“Could we be superheroes?” Herb asked.
Emma sighed with an uncomfortable titter. He’d somehow hit a nerve.
“Seriously,” Herb said. “Like, hang out in rough neighborhoods... but hiding in the ship. We watch the screen, and when someone’s in trouble...”
“What?”
“The dimensional transfer thing. Save the day.”
“I hate to break it to you,” Emma said with dry sarcasm, “but to be a superhero, you need strength, speed, or some legitimate superpower.”
“Wait, we do. We’re invisible.”
“Invisible? That’s understated. Invisible means you cannot be seen. Here, you cannot be seen, heard, smelled, tasted, or felt.”
“Right. So, we have guns pointed before they even see us!”
“And we escape instantly by transferring back to the other universe,” Emma blurted immediately. “Herb, you’re being thoroughly ridiculous.”
“You know that’s what Mom and Dad would’ve wanted.”
“No, it absolutely would not!” she snapped, irritated that he’d tread there.
“That’s what they did. They were cops.”
“Mom was a cop. Dad was a forensic laboratory manager.”
“Why are you always correcting me?”
Years earlier, when Emma was in college, their parents were on a wedding anniversary hot air balloon ride that struck a zip line. The basket flipped over, and they fell to their deaths.
Her parents had wanted Emma to use her mind for public service. Preferring physics, Emma felt she couldn’t please them. Since then, she’d refused to reflect on how their deaths affected her emotionally.
“I wanna go home,” Herb said.
* * *
The next day, Emma disappeared into a refuge where she could redirect anxious thoughts toward science and invention. Not even Herb knew the location existed.
During Emma’s early experiments with interdimensional matter-transfer, she’d turned a giant boulder buried in a storm water basin into an asteroid in an alternate universe. The accompanying water formed an exquisite outer layer of ice crystals.
After hollowing the interior painstakingly with matter-transfer technology, Emma had made it her workshop. The selected alternate universe was fortuitously perfect. Brilliant star clusters provided the solar arrays enough light to power instruments and machine tools.
Emma poured her efforts into her newest gadget. Meanwhile, she reflected on her thirst to explore every universe and understand why each evolved so uniquely. Though Emma wanted to transform science, secrecy was essential.
Yet the one person she could trust to respect the grand power she’d invented was uninterested in science.
Herb was a conundrum tougher than any physics stumper. She recognized he was miserable but didn’t have guidance to offer him. This pained her terribly.
Emma wondered why she’d thought Herb, having no interest in astrophysics, would ever care about her scientific quests. Also, the soundness in Herb’s crazy suggestion irked her. Their family had been dedicated to law enforcement. In the right hands, interdimensional travel could be an unprecedented tool in defending public safety.
Emma recognized the empathy Herb maintained for helpless victims. She wondered if she could unlock the valiant Weaver inside him. Despite his lack of self-worth, he was upright and trustworthy to the core. Undeniably, there was something magnificent in him. She wanted to explain that to him, but she knew he’d take it as insincere. She needed a better way to let him know.
Then, a thought petrified her. In her silly proposal about sneaking around Washington, D.C., could she have subconsciously led Herb to suggest his ludicrous crime-fighting proposition? And was it possible there was some Weaver in herself?
Emma vacuumed the dust from the gadget she’d completed. As she admired its sleek teardrop shape, Emma acknowledged that the tragic loss of her parents gave her a critical responsibility for which she felt inadequate.
This required from her extraordinary measures.
* * *
At 4:45PM, as always, the field near the Weavers’ apartment was free of Little Leaguers. Respecting his ritual, Herb stood at home plate with the bat his dad had gotten him when he was nine. He remembered that Christmas, the last without his parents. One-by-one, he belted a pile of stones.
The first rock was for Heath, the following for each of his rotten friends. The next set was for everyone at school who’d ever laughed at him. Then he lifted a larger stone and contemplated his bat’s next victim.
Tall, brilliant Emma and her damned science experiments.
Herb recalled how she’d been in college when their parents died. Emma was building a new life, while Herb was left with lonely Aunt Jenny. There was nothing awful about Aunt Jenny; he just didn’t want to live with her. He needed his family back. Only years later, after Emma had secured her Ph.D. and a job back in New Jersey, did she accept his guardianship.
After bashing several rocks in succession, he hurled the bat down the third base line. Respiring heavily, Herb wondered if losing their parents had grieved Emma as much.
* * *
Herb’s homework kept him up late that night. When Emma stopped by his door, Herb hardly glanced up from his desk. He really didn’t care what she had to say.
“I built you something,” she said.
He responded suspiciously, “Yeah? What?”
Emma placed the gun on his desk. It had an unusually large, loopy trigger and guard, giving the weapon a teardrop shape.
Herb offered a blank stare.
“It’s a firearm,” she said. “Designed for space gloves. Get your suit. We’re subduing villains.”
* * *
Floating in the Griffin, Herb sought to grasp Emma’s strategy.
“Why California?” he asked.
“Far enough that authorities can’t place us there,” Emma said. “Perfect alibi.”
On the viewscreen, Herb witnessed a rapidly moving view across the continent. They could peer into Earth’s universe while being altogether undetectable. What an upper hand!
* * *
Herb was drowsy, having stared at seedy San Francisco streets for hours. Abruptly, a band of hoodlums came smashing mailboxes and garbage cans with iron rods. They accosted a slender brunette who’d just exited a strip club. She squirmed as the men attempted to grasp her.
That awakened him. Donning their reflective spacesuits, Herb and Emma instantaneously emerged behind the gang.
The young thugs laughed upon turning around. Spacesuits, Herb imagined, were beyond San Francisco’s fashion boundaries. Then, brandishing their iron rods, the hoodlums advanced toward them.
Herb felt his lips clenching. Following Emma’s lead, he fired stray warning shots. The gang scattered quickly.
The roar of bullets triggered in Herb a cascade of euphoria. Herb had worried that the fear of killing someone would keep him from firing the weapon.
But it didn’t.
In fact, the power it offered alleviated the pain of insignificance and indignity he’d been suffering for so long. Then he examined the frightened dancer lying against the storefront. Being her hero felt so foreign and delicious!
Police sirens blaring, Emma commanded, “Home universe, initiate.”
Promptly, they were floating in space staring at the Griffin.
“Why’d you do that? I wanted to see if she was okay!” Herb radioed in frustration.
“We were done.”
There was a period of silence.
“Why can’t we switch universes right back into the spaceship? We wouldn’t need these stupid spacesuits.”
“We’d have to be synchronized perfectly with the Griffin’s interior coordinates or risk reemerging in the hull. But I’m working on it.”
* * *
Herb was nonetheless thrilled with the opportunity Emma had afforded. On designated nights, they traveled across the nation. From a hold-up in Atlanta to a carjacking in L.A., the spacesuited pair foiled crimes just about to unfold. Through this new dimension, Herb’s old pathetic self could vanish and reemerge a hero.
Herb was eager to learn the impact of his efforts. Initially, his daily web hunt uncovered local reports of crime-fighters in silvery spacesuits who mystically materialized and disappeared into thin air. As the media connected the dots, the “Reflecting Phantoms” story went mainstream.
Herb’s eyes lit up when he read the school newspaper editorial his hopeless crush Darlene had written. She maintained that these mysterious guardians were a godsend so desperately needed.
Herb wondered how he’d summoned enough courage for confronting villains, but approaching a girl paralyzed him with fear. Finally, he found the nerve after gym class.
“I liked your article about the Reflecting Phantoms,” he told Darlene.
“Thanks,” she responded.
He was hoping for a longer answer.
“I’m on your side. Whoever these guys are, they’re doing the right thing.”
“They really make degenerates think twice, don’t they? Hope they fix Armistice Street someday,” she said of a local neighborhood known for drug deals. “Catch you later. Stay dry.”
Despite her gibe about the swimming pool incident, Herb congratulated himself for talking to the girl of his dreams.
* * *
The next morning, Emma overheard the garbled melody coming from the bathroom. She knew Herb despised “top 40,” yet he was crooning a teenybopper love song. At breakfast, Herb was still humming it.
Contemplating what could’ve sparked his behavior, she shot, “Tell me her name!”
“None of your business,” he replied, grinning.
“You have a date, don’t you?”
“No. And you’re the expert?”
“I go on dates,” she insisted defensively.
“Yeah, who’s the last person you went out with?”
Emma thought frantically, trying to recall her last fling. Proud of her slender build and curly blonde hair, she considered herself attractive. Yet, her scarce romances never led anywhere. This was incongruous with her early college days, when her fascination with men was blossoming.
But then her parents died.
Getting close to someone didn’t feel comfortable anymore. Romance bore little importance. Marriage dropped from her ambitions. Motherhood was unthinkable.
“Marvin Rosenblatt,” she answered.
“That guy? Wasn’t he your lab partner?”
* * *
For Emma, discharging a weapon at an offender was an emotionless calculation. She simply was using a projectile to subdue an individual who endangered others.
To minimize lethality, she aimed for the legs or shoulders. Herb argued that law enforcement officers targeted the body’s center of mass. To this, Emma always replied that police lack the benefit of interdimensional travel to appear and vanish at will.
Emma was growing concerned over the anger in Herb’s gestures when he fired his gun. Her intention had been to help him build courage, not to give him a forum for taking out aggressions and swiftly hiding from the repercussions.
Emma feared she’d made a horrible mistake trusting Herb with the fantastic powers of her technology, proving herself yet again an incapable guardian.
It was too easy and sanitary for him. Ambush the villain and expeditiously return to hiding. It neither demanded real bravery nor provided appreciation for the ugliness of violence.
Although she recognized the importance of what they were doing for imminent victims, Emma contemplated putting an end to the Reflecting Phantoms’ exploits. Instead, she vowed to watch Herb carefully the next time and confront him immediately afterwards if she observed it again.
However, the next night, events didn’t develop as planned. Taking two armed perpetrators by surprise, Emma cleanly shot one, and Herb hit the other.
Quickly, an unexpected blast sent Herb to the ground. Emma contained her panic as she spotted the third gunman they’d missed. She sprayed cover fire while attending to Herb.
Fortunately, a bullet had just grazed his spacesuit. He was already applying a “quick patch.” When suit sensors confirmed a seal, she commanded their vanishing.
Herb and Emma agreed immediately that the Reflecting Phantoms needed a hiatus.
Although they were safe, Emma imagined a potential sticky consequence. Krawling Laboratories’ unique nickel-coated aramid fiber covered their space suits. While it normally didn’t shed, the bullet probably liberated some material, which could become a clue to investigators.
* * *
Taking a break from heroism, personal topics swirled through Herb’s mind. One night, he peeked through Emma’s bedroom doorway. It was always difficult getting her attention when she read.
"Darlene," he said.
"What? Who?" she responded.
"You asked me her name."
"...Oh."
Emma lowered the book. Slowly and uneasily she asked, "Want to tell me about her?"
"You won't believe this girl. She's amazing..."
* * *
Herb couldn’t get his head around Darlene’s marvels. She wrote for the school newspaper, competed on the gymnastics team, and studied jiu-jitsu.
One evening, Herb attended a gymnastics meet. Watching her perform reminded him how physically inept he and Emma were for battling criminals. But he resolved to remain confident.
Fellow students cared little for gymnastics, leaving the bleachers mostly empty. Darlene appreciated that he’d paid interest, so much so she thanked him after the events.
Herb asked about her floor routine, which she happily discussed. But she seemed surprised when he praised her performance. Darlene explained that her scores were weak, and she lacked skills to compete vault, bars, or beam.
When he further expressed admiration for her achievements, she continued downplaying herself. Darlene insisted her Reflecting Phantoms article was an aberration; most of the material she wrote wasn’t good enough for the school paper. As for jiu-jitsu, she chuckled that she’d never survive a real fight. At best, with a lucky surprise kick, she might knock some ‘stooge’ down.
Her modesty bothering him, Herb successfully posed the key question, “Want to get pizza tomorrow night?”
“Umm... sure,” she replied hesitantly.
Darlene’s facial expressions struck familiar. He gathered she was trying to conjure a kind rejection.
He’d just scored dinner with the ‘perfect’ girl yet remained troubled. He didn’t want a mercy date. But his greater fear was that Darlene was just an ordinary girl who happened to enjoy gymnastics and write occasional articles for the school paper.
* * *
While Herb was on his date, Emma was alone. She stared at the H.G. Wells novel that would keep her company that evening and wondered what had happened to her own love life.
She recounted Herb’s description of Darlene. While Emma hoped Herb wasn’t building her up in his mind, she couldn’t help but recognize how Darlene’s passion and athletic skills might strengthen the Reflecting Phantoms.
And Herb adored her...
An unexpected knock at the apartment door startled Emma. She crept to the peep hole and saw a suited gentleman readying his badge. This was bad.
She hoped they hadn’t found Herb yet.
* * *
Herb couldn’t find words to engage Darlene’s attention. She was standoffish. He feared that a heartless rejection was forthcoming.
"I've never seen anyone order extra broccoli. Pepperoni, sure," he said before recalling she was vegetarian. He remembered she’d said something about despising human predator instincts. Then, he awkwardly bit into his slice of sausage pizza.
Suddenly, a group of disruptive teenagers entered the pizzeria. Herb cringed when he spotted his high school nemesis.
Heath inevitably found them. He sauntered close and fondled Herb’s hair. The gang, all high like Heath, laughed mercilessly.
“HERRR-bert,” Heath crooned.
The snot and sweat dripping down Heath’s face amplified Herb’s fear and revulsion. Eyeing the doorway, Herb spotted Emma with what looked like a golden hula-hoop. He was bewildered.
Then, Emma found them.
"We have to go," she said, tugging Herb’s arm.
Herb shot Darlene an embarrassed glance. Huffing, Darlene yanked Herb’s other arm, wrenching him free of Heath’s grasp.
Outside, Heath trotted after Herb. However, a balding, muscular gentleman in a denim jacket intercepted Heath.
"Who's that?" Herb asked Darlene.
"Probably his dealer’s goon."
"Good. I hope he's in trouble."
Darlene’s grimace at his remark deflated Herb. And before he could even enjoy Heath’s fate, Emma lassoed them both with the golden hoop, pulling them into an alley.
"Excuse me!" Darlene protested.
Instantly, the three were floating in the Griffin.
"You did it! Without space suits!" Herb exclaimed.
"What the hell’s going on?" Darlene shrieked. She was confused and clearly unaccustomed to zero gravity.
Herb had never heard Darlene holler so loudly.
Catching Emma’s encouraging wink, Herb said, "I guess we're the Reflecting Phantoms."
“What!? Why am I floating? Put me down right now!” Darlene screamed.
“We’re in outer space. There is no down,” Herb said, trying to calm her. Moreover, he was proud that he’d remembered Emma’s explanation of weightlessness.
"Listen,” Emma snapped, pulling away the hoop. “Herb and I need to lay low while I make some evidence disappear. Darlene, do you want me to take you home?"
Herb, at first, felt it awkward that his older sister would offer to drive home his date. Then he recognized that not many sisters had an interdimensional spaceship.
Darlene didn’t say a word. Emma nodded, clearly taking Darlene’s non-response as an indication that she was happy to go for a ride.
Emma maneuvered the vessel ‘through’ homes and businesses, arriving deep inside Krawling Labs. Darlene stared at the screen throughout the trip. Herb interpreted Darlene’s face as perplexed, but otherwise couldn’t read the machinations rolling through her head.
Herb wanted to tell Darlene more. He recognized that this was the moment for her to finally see him for what he truly was. Yet, he’d never felt so tongue-tied.
"I need one hour. Touch nothing," Emma warned.
Then, she climbed inside the hula-hoop and disappeared.
Breaking the silence, Darlene asked rhetorically, “You guys really are the Reflecting Phantoms?"
Herb nodded, still unable to find the right words to say.
“Then we gotta help Heath,” she said.
"You heard Emma! ‘Don't touch anything.’”
"Heath’s our classmate. He’s in trouble!”
Because things hadn’t been clicking between him and Darlene, he humored her concerns. Having watched Emma many times, he proficiently guided the ship back to the pizzeria. Heath, however, wasn’t there.
"What about Armistice Street?” Darlene asked. “That's where they do these things.”
"There’s no time! Heath deserves whatever he’s getting anyway."
"If that’s what the Reflecting Phantoms are about, I’m disappointed."
Herb was incensed. He’d been foolishly certain that once Darlene saw him as a superhero, she’d fall in love with him. More importantly, the sweet girl he’d imagined was awfully more headstrong than he’d projected. Herb wasn’t even sure he liked her!
But deep down, he knew she was right.
Restraining his outrage, he guided the craft to Armistice Street. Sure enough, Heath and the denim-jacketed man were there.
"We can’t hear them," Herb explained.
"How do you get into those?" Darlene asked, pointing to the lustrous spacesuits against the wall.
* * *
Still hiding in the Griffin, Herb and Darlene watched the goon’s interrogation of Heath grow heated. Then, Heath drew a chartreuse green-colored switchblade. In response, the goon removed a handgun from the armpit holster under his denim jacket.
“Just like Heath to bring a knife to a gunfight,” Darlene mumbled via radio.
Herb executed their transfer.
Noticing he was a lone spaceman on Armistice Street, Herb radioed hopelessly, “Darlene!?”
He deduced that Emma's secure system didn’t recognize her. Unwilling to do this solo, Herb decided to return to hidden space and abandon Heath. But when he issued the command, nothing happened.
“Initiate!” he repeated. Nothing.
He could hardly guess at why it wasn’t working. There’d never been a malfunction. Crazy conjectures went through his head. Perhaps Darlene was an evil genius who’d absconded with the vessel, which was now out of range. (He dismissed that theory.)
Regardless, stuck and alone, Herb didn’t want a shootout. Using his suit’s exterior speaker, Herb shouted, “Okay. You sir. Whoever you are. Umm, let’s take it easy.”
The denim-jacketed man said nothing and backed toward a dumpster.
Herb continued, “How about we both put down our guns, and we just, like, get some pizza?” Then he mumbled, “Okay, bad choice, we just came from there.”
Then came a moment of tense, awkward silence as the goon continued backing away. Herb quickly recognized that the man would attain cover and then open fire.
Herb sprinted towards the dumpster. By the time the gangster was behind it, Herb had reached the other side. They exchanged gunfire. Guts burning, Herb was wasting shots.
When Heath attempted to run, the thug shot Heath in the leg. His chartreuse switchblade fell to the ground. Herb took guilty delight watching Heath tumble, writhe about in agony, and beg for his life.
But soon Heath shouted, "Look out!"
The warning was just enough for Herb to duck. He’d taken his eye off the gangster, who was now atop the dumpster.
A shot grazed Herb’s helmet, cracking the glass.
Herb tried firing back, but his weapon was empty. Fortunately, the gangster was checking his own ammo.
“I just want O’Malley!” the villain shouted to Herb. “Get lost.”
Holstering his gun, Herb weighed running and saving himself. Then he looked at Heath. Instead of a vicious bully, Herb saw a frightened and troubled teen who desperately needed his help. When the thug aimed his gun at Heath, Herb knew he had to act.
He ignited his suit’s jetpack for maximum thrust and flew at the man. Herb slammed into him, knocking away his gun. They both fell from the dumpster to the ground.
Herb quickly recognized his plan’s flaw. Wounded, Heath couldn’t retrieve the gun. Meanwhile, the gangster easily out-wrestled Herb and stumbled toward the weapon. Next, he’d kill them both.
But as the goon reached for the gun, out of thin air, a diminutive spaceman with the golden hoop appeared with a perfectly aimed surprise side thrust kick.
It was barely enough to knock him down.
Next, the newcomer grabbed the gun, tossed it and a towel to Herb, and ran to Heath. Herb followed, but first extracted Heath’s chartreuse switchblade from the ground.
“Press the towel into his wound!” Darlene’s brash voice rang in his headset.
Darlene set the golden hoop around them and covered Heath’s eyes. Promptly, the three materialized inside the Griffin. Emma quietly winked at Herb from the navigation panel. He couldn’t wait to get out of his spacesuit to hug her.
“Just after you landed on Armistice Street, the ship took off,” Darlene lamented via radio. “Emma auto-piloted it back to her lab when she realized it was gone. Apparently, she has a homing app on her phone. We came for you as fast as we could.”
* * *
Emma was pleased that delivering Heath to the nearest ER had gone perfectly. Darlene and Herb were arguing about next steps. Seeing their body language, Emma was confident that romance wasn’t brewing. Herb, at least, had been risking the effort.
Glancing at the teardrop-shaped firearm in Herb’s holster, Emma confronted the grief she’d been storing. In her mind, she said goodbye to her parents and vowed she was doing her best to heal her brother’s universe. At that, Emma felt not so incapable after all.
At that moment, Emma noticed an encouraging text she’d received. Marvin Rosenblatt had accepted her proposal to meet for coffee. She knew he’d certainly appreciate exploring the astrophysical phenomena of alternate universes!
Emma cracked a smile and laughed in a way she hadn’t in a very long time. It was time for her to stop hiding in her secret dimension.
* * *
Having heard nothing from his drug dealer, Heath O’Malley’s optimism grew daily. He figured no commonplace criminal would invite further attention from the Reflecting Phantoms.
At last, he returned to school in crutches from his gruesome leg wound. His buddies celebrated by shoving little Herb Weaver into a locker.
Heath noticed disappointedly that Herb lacked his usual frightened, agonized expression. The clenched, trembling lips were gone. Instead, Herb almost seemed to be grinning at him.
Eventually, Darlene Luvina arrived. She got into the bullies’ faces, ordering that they cut it out. It was adequate distraction for Herb to squirm away.
Then, Heath noticed a green object Herb had left on the ground. One of Heath’s buddies darted after Herb, but Heath blocked his friend with a crutch. Heath recognized the object as his chartreuse switchblade that he’d lost in the gunfight. Heath almost fell on his injured leg.
Darlene patted Herb softly on the back and darted away.
As Heath glanced at Herb and Darlene, Heath recalled the two small but courageous spacemen who’d helped him that night. He grew nauseous, and a wave of gastric juice flooded his esophagus. He deemed it time to lay off Herb Weaver.
First appeared in Bewildering Stories, April 2019
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