A Day in the Life of Powerless George

A short story written back in 2020: in a society where everyone has a superpower, George has lied for years about having healing powers. When his best friend disappears, George discovers that even powerless, he is more capable than he imagines. And maybe he can get the guy, too.

The needle threads through Marcel’s freckled skin, closing the wound into a straight line. I wipe my brow and lean closer to his arm to inspect my work.

“I haven’t done this since the first year of the Healing Academy,” I tell him while he picks at the collar of his tight-knit spandex suit, a nervous tic since childhood.  “What happened to your healing?”

He shrugs, his cape moving up and down with the motion, hands in front of him palm-up. Another one of his tics: downplaying the situation. Picking, downplaying, my body tenses: he’s scared.

“No idea, Georgie.”

I wince at the diminutive nickname. “Don’t call me that. Doesn’t your non-existent superhealing concern you? What’s going on out there? Are you the only one affected?” I put my hand on his knee. “Why didn’t you let Kayla look at it since she has…” My voice weakens as I hesitate to say the “p” word.

“You’ve got a lot of questions, Georgie. Which one do you want me to tackle first?”

“Marcel,” I start but he cuts me off saying his stupid superhero name, “Mighty Man.”

“Marcel,” I emphasize because there’s no way that idiotic name is leaving my lips. “I’m concerned about…”  Shoot, what did the new villain call himself? Ike the Bite? Isle of Terror? Every week there is a new overpowered villain bent on destroying Capital City, and every week the Allegiance takes them down.

Marcel smirks as he swings his legs back and forth like a little kid. There’s the third tick. Like how his super-suit and mask hide his identity from the rest of the world, his smirk hides his true feelings from me. “Ivan the Invincible. It’s such a stupid name.”

“And Mighty Man is any better?”

“Oh, my powers, it’s leagues better than Ivan the Invincible. Georgie, the name Mighty Man alone inspires an entire citizen population.”

I raise an eyebrow, challenging him. “You realize all citizens have a superpower, right?”

“Well,” He picks at his collar again. He’s nervous the “p” word finally arrived, though I’m the one who said it. It’s five letters long but creates miles of distance in our friendship.

In the United Powered States, puberty doesn’t bring facial hair and bad body odor. Hormones create nothing as pedestrian as acne or gangly limbs. When you turn thirteen, you develop your superpower.

One day you’re sitting in the cafeteria during lunch, punching the table to emphasize a point and the next thing you know, your fist breaks the table in half. Or, like my friend Luis, you burp in front of your history teacher and set their hair on fire.

Sure, some people develop a bit earlier around eleven, and others develop as late as sixteen. “Mighty Man” himself was a late bloomer, coming into his super strength a few weeks before his seventeenth birthday. By twenty, he developed flight and advanced healing, too. He keeps these late developments on the down low, though, to protect “his image.” By the time he was twenty-three, he had graduated first in his class at Over-Powered University, and his predecessor, Lightning Strike, hand-picked him to join the Allegiance.

And then there’s me. I waited and dreamed and hoped, and when my twenty-second birthday came and went, I accepted my reality: I’m powerless. Stories have been written about powerless people. Mothers scare their children by warning those who misbehave will become powerless. It’s all myth and legend, nothing but whispers in the night.

No one besides Marcel knows I’m powerless. My colleagues at the Capital City Hospital think I have superintelligence. A few think I have incredibly specific and abnormal healing abilities focused on allergic reactions. But really, I studied five times harder than any other student in the Healing Academy and picked an unpopular area of medicine to hide in plain sight.

Although I accept I’m powerless, it doesn’t mean I like reminders I am powerless. Like a large wart on your cheek, you know it exists, but on all-things-powered, does someone have to point it out to you? “You don’t have to get so nervous.”

“I worry about you,” he says, playing with his collar.

“You don’t have to worry about me.”

“Of course I do; you’re Georgie.”

Warmth rises from my neck to my cheeks. If I had fire powers, I would have self-immolated (it does happen sometimes and it’s an incredibly ugly sight to behold). Did Alexa forget to pay the air conditioning bill again? Why’s it so hot?

“I appreciate your concern. I do, but I’ve been fine for the past twenty-eight years. I’ll live.”

“Famous last words, “I’ll live”.” Marcel remarks as he checks the stitched wound. “You sure you don’t sew in your free time?”

I hit him in the shoulder and almost break my knuckles. Punching Marcel is like punching a boulder: useless and only I get hurt. “Oh, powers!” I curse as I rub my throbbing hand.

The alarm on his Allegiance-provided wristwatch shrills. “Duty calls. Put some ice on that hand, Georgie. See you tonight for tacos?”

“Yeah, sure.” I wave him goodbye, and he flies out the window, shattering the glass all over the linoleum floor of my examination room. Great. “I got the window fixed yesterday,” I mutter to no one as I sit on the hard plastic chair next to the examination table I used for make-shift surgery. Worry gnaws at my stomach, but I force it to calm the powers down. “He’ll be okay,” I whisper like a prayer, “he’ll be okay.”

Marcel has his duties and I have mine. The rest of the day follows the routine. Three allergy tests, two consultations, and one emergency examination of a man who ate a strawberry and realized he couldn’t breathe three minutes later. Superpowered humans are still human, after all.

As I walk home (no public transportation when most of the population can fly, run super-fast, or teleport), I check the live updates on the Allegiance, maintained by a fangirl group who specialize in stalking superpowers like invisibility, foresight, and mind-reading. I scroll through their feed, nothing new catching my eye: Firegirl destroyed minions in one blast! The Icebreaker froze a giant wave a villain made into Capital City’s newest ice sculpture!

I reach the top of the feed and swallow the bile that rushes to my mouth as I read: posted four minutes ago by StalkUSeeU: “Mighty Man Missing After Fight!”

Missing. Marcel is missing. I click on the headline and tears blur my vision as I read the text. “Mighty Man had the upper hand for most of the fight until Ivan the Invincible,” (Marcel is totally right, Ivan’s name is worse than his), “grabbed him by the hand and the two disappeared! Did the Allegiance know of Ivan’s teleportation skill? How many superpowers does he have? Is he an over-powered? Does the super team know where their leader is? Or, according to some murmurs around Capitol City, is Mighty Man in cahoots with Ivan?”

I shut the screen off after the last question. Marcel would never work with an evil over-powered. He cries when couples kiss at the end of romance movies. He makes me kill spiders for him.

No, he’s not working with Ivan.  Marcel, my binge-drinking buddy, my trashy-television-show commentator, my taco-loving friend, my beautiful Marcel is in the clutches of this over-powered enemy of the week. He's been taken five times (“It’s part of my job! It’s not like I want to be kidnapped, Georgie”). But now, Marcel’s healing powers are broken. He’s vulnerable. Marcel could be hurt.

My fingers shake as I dial a number Marcel told me to only use in extreme emergencies. She picks up after two rings. “I’m so sorry, George,” Laura says before I can speak, her voice rough and tired. “I don’t know how it happened. We knew Ivan had impenetrability, advanced healing powers, and high evasion, but we didn’t know about the teleportation. He’s incredibly over-powered.”

“It’s okay,” I say though nothing about the Allegiance’s faulty intelligence is acceptable. Don’t they employ mind-readers for powers-sake? “Let me know how I can help.”

She laughs bitterly and I bite the inside of my lip. “If we couldn’t save him, why do you think you stand a chance?” Her words are a super-strength punch to the gut. My eyes blur again, tears leaking out the corners. “Look, I’m sorry, George, that was mean of me. I’m stressed, okay? Trying to find Marcel hasn’t been easy, okay? I can’t have your help because Marcel would want you safe. So go home and wait for us to figure something out, okay?”

When someone says okay that many times you agree and say okay, too. She hangs up as I say the word to the dial tone.

I’m standing in the middle of the sidewalk in downtown Center City. Two men in business suits carrying briefcases fly above my head, chatting about work. A girl leaves her office building and teleports home. I’m standing. I’m waiting. Ever since I turned thirteen, I have been waiting. Waiting for my powers. Waiting for Marcel to come home from a fight. Waiting for allergy test results. Maybe my superpower is advanced waiting.

If it is, one, that freaking sucks, and two, I’m disowning it. I’m tired of waiting. I’m not going to wait for this madman to harm Marcel. He would never wait around if I were in danger. I may be powerless, but I’m not helpless.

Okay, first, I need to track his location. Changing direction, I run back towards the Hospital. City Hall sits three blocks down on the other side of the street. All Allegiance members have a tracker on them that the Over-Powers Division manages.

The receptionist Bailey listens with concern shining in her eyes behind her dark-rimmed square-framed glasses as I explain my story. Her blonde hair is pulled back into a neat bun as usual. She reaches across the desk and touches my left bicep in comfort. “Listen, George. I know you have been given special access in the past because of your closeness with Mighty Man.”

“I’m his medic.”

“But don’t you think his tracker is already being looked at? The agents are working on restoring it right now. It turned off the moment they disappeared.”

I freeze, eyes wide in disbelief. Marcel never lost his tracker. Never. She removes her hand and gives me a look of pity. “Why don’t you go home and wait? Mighty Man can get out of anything. He’ll be back before you can say superpower.”

I turn on my heel and run out of the building. Standing outside the gilded doors to City Hall, I rub my face in frustration. I have to think harder. Be smarter. Ivan must have known to remove his tracker before teleporting. The device is common knowledge, after all. Okay, think. I know Marcel. What does he always have on him? Marcel carries two things into battle: his tracker and his phone. He’s addicted to playing word search games and hides it in a secret pocket inside his right boot. What if Ivan did not find Marcel’s phone?

I know just the woman to help. My old roommate, Jenna, known to the public as Codebreaker, calls me less than two seconds after I send my text.

“You want me to hack Mighty Man’s phone?” After a beat where I don’t respond, she continues,  “Well, how can I? I don’t know his name, his phone number, his passcode…”

“His name is Marcel LaGuerre. His phone number is 555-341-3435 and his passcode is 4367.”

“....you realize what his passcode spells, George?”

 “Hero, right?”

  “....Oh, my powers, it’s...never mind. What’s in it for me?”

“Remember when you ate almonds, and I had an extra Epi-Pen?”

“Alright, fine. Give me three minutes.”

She hangs up, and I pace back and forth in front of City Hall, glimpsing at my phone for her message. Marcel, Marcel, Marcel, his name repeats in my head. I need him to be safe. I need to find him. We have tacos to eat tonight, for powers sake! Two minutes of fretting later, she sends me his location: a warehouse in the old industrial district. I send her a thank-you text back, and then I put the address into my map application on my phone: a freaking thirty-minute walk from here. I follow the directions, moving down the boulevard; I stumble into nothing and a girl with shoulder-length braids appears, apologizing. “Still figuring this power out!”

Halfway there, the reality of the situation catches up with me. Am I really going to face an over-powered? How would I save Marcel? A distraction? Exchange my life for his.

If I had super sneaking, I could be in and out in a flash. Invisibility like braid-girl would be so useful. Or illusion, to make Ivan believe he’s fighting an Allegiance member like Firestarter. What do I have? I don’t have a superpower, but I peer into my briefcase, and, yes, I have them. If it all collapses into chaos, I would use them. But could I actually kill? Do no harm, we learned in the Healing Academy, and when we earned our healing license, we repeated: do no harm.

He’s not a patient. He’s hell-bent on destroying the city I live in and the man I love--care for. Care for profoundly as a good friend who owes me tacos. Yes. Friendship, for the win.

The warehouse has two floors with dark-green vines growing out of the broken windows. I stand on my tip-toes to see into one of the windows. There are fragments of glass and debris spread around the cement floor. The window is too high off the ground. I move to the front door, but five planks of wood bolt it shut.

Okay, I got this. Just need to find another door. I crouch and walk around the building, looking like a weird imitation of a crab, and make it to the side of the warehouse undetected. Alright, go me!

The side door is also closed, but I test the metal handle; it turns, and the door opens with a small creak. I freeze. Breathe in, breathe out. This is no different from saving someone from allergic asphyxiation. Be swift, be precise, and be confident. No hesitations. Hesitation means death.

After hearing no footsteps or flying swooshes through the air, I sneak around the door and close it behind me. Take one step, then another. I make my way down the dilapidated hallway, breathing heavily, panic rising. I keep a hand in my briefcase; I may need to use this needle at any moment. I turn a corner, and the hallway opens into a large room where sunlight infiltrates through the shards of glass that used to be windows. Under one beam of sunlight sits Marcel, tied to a chair, head flopping at an uncomfortable angle.

This Marcel does not resemble Mighty Man, a proud, shining, beacon of hope. This is Marcel the man, the powerless. He looks like me.

Forgetting any idea of self-preservation, I bolt across the room to Marcel’s limp form.  “Mar.” I kneel in front of the broken hero. “Mar, please, wake up.”

He does not respond. I put two fingers up to his carotid artery and his pulse, weak but beating, reassures me. I grip his still shoulders and shake him, though it feels like shaking a mountain. Even broken, he is too strong for my weak arms.

“Marcel.” My voice is tight with anxiety as I shout, “Marcel, wake up, for powers-sake! Now!” No response, not even a grunt.

Desperate times, desperate measures. I slap him in the face and then rub my palm to calm the throbbing. Marcel groans as his face contorts in a mix of pain and confusion.

“Georgie?” I’ve never heard him sound so vulnerable, even when we were kids. “Am I dead?”

Relief flows through my veins, calming the adrenaline pounding through my body. I found him. He’s here. He’s safe. “You idiot, why would I be here if you’re dead?”

He smiles, revealing blood-stained teeth. “I’m glad you’re here. I’m safe wherever you are, even if it means we’re dead.”

Oh. Oh, Marcel. “I’m safe wherever you are, too.” As much as I’ve always wanted to hear Marcel speak softly about me, now is not the time for romantic declarations. “Marcel, you’re not dead, but we are in trouble. You need to get out of here before he comes back.”

“I’m so tired, Georgie.”

“I know. I know you are.” His eyes flutter and I squeeze his shoulders. “Please, stay awake. Come on, how are you going to eat tacos if you’re sleeping?”

He slurs, “Tacos sound so good.”

“You’ll get them, but we have to move.”

A harsh voice breaks through the warehouse and my blood freezes in my veins. “What’s your superpower, little man? Being an annoying pest?”

Oh, my non-existent powers. I turn, though my left-hand grips Marcel’s shoulder, whether to steady him or myself, who cares? Ivan the Whatever hovers above us, his black-eyed glare as dangerous as his little-known powers.

“We going to fight, little man?” No, we are not. Nope, nope, nope.

“Leave him alone,” Marcel groans as he moves to sit up straighter. “You wanted the star of the Allegiance? You got me. Let him walk out of here and we can finish this between us. He’s no one.”

Ivan’s glare shifts from my ashen face to my shaking hand on Marcel’s shoulder, which I quickly remove as my face flushes. So much for being “no one.”  Marcel keeps talking, voice rising in panic, “Come at me, Ivan! You have me, at your mercy, and you can finish me off. Let’s go! Do you want a fight? I’ll give you a fight!”

At Marcel's attempts to save me despite being hurt, I force my shaking right hand into my briefcase. I can’t defeat Ivan, but Marcel can. If he had a little help. My fingers grasp the needle.

And then I’m ten feet in the air. Ivan’s gloved hand holds me up by my neck. My feet kick wildly as my arms flail. Now would be an amazing time to find out I have flight powers.

Ivan’s grip squeezes my neck and I see stars. My vision tunnels. Sounds muffle. Ivan leans in, hot breath hitting my face. “Who are you? What is your power? Telekinesis? Advanced Intelligence? Mind-reading?” I choke, gasping for air. “Well, are you going to throw something at me? What, the air? How's your intelligence helping you now? What am I thinking? I'll tell you: pests deserve extermination."

My senses start to disappear. My fingers flex in panic and I remember: I still have the needle in my right hand. I flick my eyes to the ground and see Marcel thrashing against his bonds right below us, screaming my name. If I angle it to the left... I release my fingers and let the needle drop. It falls on his lap, and Marcel looks up at me, lost, like when he messes up making tortillas.

Oh, powers, I can’t breathe. Come on finger...point...at...needle...and fade to black. Darkness.

When my vision returns, I see Marcel’s face leaning over me, tears streaming down his cheeks. I feel his hand brush my thick black hair.

“George! Thank all the powers, you’re alive! He’s okay, Laur--Firestarter, he’s okay!”

I attempt to stand up, but Marcel’s arms are secured tightly around my waist, and hey, being in his arms isn’t the worst thing. I lean into his rock-hard chest, this powers-damn mountain of a man, and breathe in the cinnamon scent I lov...cared for...oh my powers, fine, love. The smell I love, the chest I love, the man I love.

Laura kneels to my eye level, scanning my injuries. “I don’t think there’s any brain damage, and you caught him before he fell. Some bruising, but it will heal. I can get Hector here to check, though?”

“Not Hector, he’ll never let it go,” I say, voice wheezy. Hector would find out I’m powerless and tell everyone at the Hospital. I wiggle my fingers and toes. My neck feels like it has been squeezed dry, but I’m okay. The bruises, the pain, it will fade in time. “I’m sure I’m fine.” I glance up at Marcel. He’s free, breathing, and alive. “It worked?”

He grins, his hand still playing with my hair. “It worked. I never want to plunge a needle into my thigh again, but your theory of adrenaline's effect on superpowers is correct. I have never felt stronger than I did at that moment.”

I whisper, “And Ivan?”

I follow Marcel’s gaze to the corner of the room, where a dead Ivan leans against the wall, head bent at a forty-five-degree angle, blood-splattered behind him. “Gruesome.” I close my eyes as a shiver runs up my spine. I’ll have nightmares tonight. “Glad he’s dead, though. Good riddance.”

“And his name,” Marcel starts.

“Was the worst, you were right.” Even with a faint blood smear covering his usually stark white teeth, his smile calms my nerves; as long as Marcel lived, I would be okay.

“Let’s go. I remember something about you owing me tacos.” He scoops me into his arms, picks me up, and flies us to my office. We fly in through the same window he broke this morning. He places me down gently on the examination table. “Give me a second,” he says as he walks out the door with his phone. A minute later, Kayla, the head healer for the Allegiance flies in through the same broken window. “Oh, George,” she says, taking in my bruised neck, and begins the examination.

“He’s not going to cull over and die from unseen brain damage, right?” Marcel holds my hand, stroking calming circles. Kayla checks my reflexes and she dodges a kick.

“No.” Kayla shines a flashlight on my right eye, then on my left. Nodding, she has me follow the light. “What’s your name?”

“George Perez.”

“And why are you here?”

“Because a psychopath almost choked me to death.”

“Okay, he’s fine, but let me see,” She places her palm on my forehead and closes her eyes. After a moment, she confirms, “Nothing wrong. Fraught nerves, unsettled stomach, and fast pulse, but nothing of concern." She frowns, “Shouldn’t you be able to examine yourself? You know, with your healing power?”

I gulp. Marcel puts a hand on her shoulder and guides her wordlessly out of the room. He shut the door as right as she turns to say something.

“Great. I have to think of a good excuse for why I can’t heal myself.”

Marcel hops onto the examination table and settles back against the wall. He maneuvers us so I’m sitting in his lap. “Well, you specialize in allergies, not asphyxiation, so you wanted a second opinion.”

I lean into his chiseled arms, his chin resting on my shoulder. His arms encircle my waist. “I’m tired of lying. Because I’m not powerless. My power comes from those I love.” I gaze into Marcel’s forest-green eyes and decide to be brave. “Or, more precisely, someone I love.”

If I can break into a warehouse and face someone with more superpowers in his pinkie than I have in my whole body, I can tell my best friend I love him.

Marcel’s grin takes over his face. He gently removes himself and jumps off the table. He heads to the door. My heart deflates in my chest. He's leaving. I imagined everything. My superpower is being an idiot. My pulse races, and my heart flutters, and all I want is his touch to steady me.

“Don’t leave. I owe you tacos.”

“Screw the tacos.”

He locks the door.

“Be swift, be precise, be confident. No hesitations.” He saunters over to me. His calloused hands hold my waist as he leans in. “My hero.” As his lips cover mine, I'm caught in his arms, and for once, I am the one who is powerful.