Caped, page 17
Cameron leaned back in his seat and sighed. “Okay. Deal.”
“Can you sleep?”
“No problem there. I’m off to bed now.”
“Call me tomorrow,” she said softly.
“I will.” At her dubious look, he added, “I promise.”
“Okay,” she said.
“Okay,” he said.
* * *
The next several weeks challenged Cameron more than most. It seemed natural disasters conspired against him with not one, but two late-season tornado outbreaks in the plains states, a volcanic eruption in the Hawaiian Islands, and a wildfire in Colorado. He saved a lot of lives, but Fox News blasted him anyway for his practice of flying off after saving the people and ignoring the damage to property.
“Captain Valiant continues to leave the job half-finished,” their lead pundit complained. “Sure, he flies in and rescues the proverbial damsels in distress, but then he flies out and leaves the burning building for the fire department to deal with, or the flooded streets to the public works department. Or the downed power lines to the electric linemen. He can’t be hurt, but his negligence puts non-super humans at risk. Where is the heroism in that, Captain?”
Cameron ignored the negative hype. It was isolated and frankly, outrageous. Most appreciated what he did.
He kept his promise to Monica. He stayed current with his meds and stopped belly-aching about it. But his condition did not improve. If anything, it worsened.
* * *
From the air, Cameron could see the emergency vehicles at the perimeter fence of the Consolidated Ellis Nuclear Facility. He landed near the Mobile Command Post and was greeted by the incident commander. “Captain Valiant, thank God you’re here.” The IC offered his hand.
Cameron took it gingerly and applied slight and conscious pressure before releasing it. “It’s Cameron, not Captain Valiant. I understand you have people trapped inside.”
“Thirteen. All in the control room of Number Two.” The commander motioned toward the Mobile Command Post. Inside, he showed Cameron a blueprint of the facility.
Cameron examined the diagram, noting the control room’s location in relation to the surrounding rooms and the reactor core.
“So far they’re not in any immediate danger from radiation, but we won’t be able to get to them before that changes.”
“What’s the safest way for me to get in there?”
The IC fingered the diagram. “If you can break through here, and here, you can get to them without releasing any radiation.”
Cameron nodded. “Looks doable. Any injuries?”
“No. We’ve been in touch, and they’re all unhurt. Still, we have EMS and a decontamination unit on scene to examine them when you get them out.”
“Then let’s not waste any more time. Advise them to get clear of the control room’s east wall. That’s where I’ll be coming in.”
The incident commander followed Cameron outside. “You’re a god-send, Cap . . . Sorry. Cameron.”
Cameron shot upward in a deep, crimson blur, hovered over the smoldering cone of Reactor Number Two, and targeted the structure that housed the control room. He pivoted in mid-air and bore down on the spot above the compartment adjacent to the control room. He crashed through the roof, through the floor, through the next floor, and through the next floor. The compartment was dark and smoky. Battery-operated emergency lights at ceiling level played on the smoke like headlights in a fog. He oriented himself, found the wall he was looking for and punched his way through it.
The control room was dimly lit, illuminated only by the colored lights and dials of the panels, and a flashing red LED ribbon bordering the ceiling. The technicians were gathered together in a far corner with backs toward him and heads covered and down.
“Everyone all right?” he asked.
“It’s Cameron,” one of the technicians said.
“We’re okay,” the supervisor told him. “Thank God you’re here, Cameron.”
It took four trips to get all thirteen technicians out of the control room. When he had dropped the last one at the decon unit, he was met by the incident commander. “We can’t thank you enough, Cameron.”
“No need.” Cameron turned and poised for flight.
“Wait a minute,” the IC said.
Cameron lowered his outstretched arm. “Yes?”
“Are you just going to leave?”
“Are there more people trapped inside?”
“No. But, we have a bigger problem. If we don’t get the reactor under control, it could go critical. Do you remember what happened in Japan?”
Cameron paused.
“Well? Captain?”
Cameron looked sharply at the incident commander. “I understand the ramifications. Commander.” He lowered his voice to an edge and added, “What do you need me to do?”
* * *
“Cam?”
The word caromed inside his skull.
“Cam? Can you hear me?”
The voice was familiar. A woman . . .
Cameron peeled his eye lids open. He could see a figure leaning over him, but it was gauzy, blurred. A throb behind his eyes made him close them again.
“He’s awake,” said a man’s voice this time.
“Cam, it’s me,” the woman said. “It’s Monica.”
Cameron forced his eyes open and squinted to clear his vision. “M-Monica?” Her face came into focus.
“Yes.” She brought her hand to her mouth. “Yes.” She lowered her hand and smiled.
“Where am I?” Cameron glanced around and saw countryside. A short distance away sat a sleek helicopter, its rotors idle. He recognized the logo of his corporate sponsor on the hull.
“Can you sit up?” Monica asked.
“I think so.” Cameron pushed up, tentatively at first, and then sat full.
“How do you feel?”
“Good. Slight headache, but its fading. What happened?”
“Well, Captain Valiant,” she emphasized the title and stood. “You went back into Reactor Two and shut it down. Then you flew off. It was all over the networks. Nice job.”
Cameron stood and faced her. He towered over her five-foot-six frame. His expression was sheepish.” Yeah, about that . . .”
“Cam, they played you. They had a team standing by to go in and shut down the core and they could have done it in plenty of time to prevent a meltdown. You saved them the trouble of putting their own people in harm’s way to do their own job.”
“That’s what I do—”
“That’s not what you do!” She turned and marched toward the helicopter, then abruptly turned back and charged him.
“You save lives. You said so yourself. Other people are trained to take those kinds of risks. That’s what they do. As smart as you are, you are not a nuclear scientist. You caved to minority media ratings hype and put yourself at risk. What good are you going to be to others if you’re killed doing someone else’s job?”
“Wait, how did I get here? What happened to me? That wasn’t a heart attack.”
“No,” her tone softened at the change in subject. “I don’t know what happened to you. News footage showed you flying off from the plant. But you were slow. Erratic. I knew something was wrong with you. You came down hard.” She pointed behind him.
A deep gouge in the earth, nearly a half-mile long ended just a few feet from where he now stood,
“I . . . I don’t remember.”
“We took some readings and some blood. But we’re going to have to study them. They’re . . . weird.”
“Weird? Is that your scientific explanation?”
“Let’s say they were unusual and unexpected. We’ll know more in a couple of days. How’s your headache?”
“Gone. Not a trace of it.”
She nodded. “I think you should head back to the mountain and take it easy for a few days. At least until we get our heads wrapped around what happened.”
“All right.” His headache was gone, but a lingering tendril of fatigue remained.
“Call me tomorrow.”
“Okay,” he said.
“Okay,” she said.
* * *
Cameron slept for over 24 hours, a deep sleep laced with vivid dreams of the days before he transformed. When he awoke, there were three missed video calls from Monica, all within the last two hours. He sent a text message that he was up and going to take a shower, and would call her afterward. She texted back immediately with a simple ok.
His shower was scalding, but he didn’t feel the sensation. Instead, he tried to remember what it was like. He lathered and rinsed slowly, air-dried himself by spinning super fast, and slipped into a clean flight suit. He ambled to his work center and dropped into the leather chair. The news monitors were all on, but muted. The police, fire scanners, and the Air Traffic Control scanner were functioning. He reviewed his Twitter feed, looking for breaking news tweets. This was his ritual. This was how he knew where he was needed. Finally, he got around to calling Monica.
“I thought you were going to call me. You have me worried.” Her face was lined with concern.
“I meant to, but I just got up an hour ago.”
“Seriously? You slept for a full day?”
“Yeah. Crazy, I know. I usually only sleep for four or five hours a night.”
“Hmmm.”
“You sound concerned. Should I be?”
“We’ve been able to analyze some of those readings we took. And we have your blood work back.”
“Blood work?” Now that his head was clear, he remembered she said she had taken blood from him yesterday. “How did you get blood?”
“That’s one of the things we need to talk about. When we found you—”
“Wait,” he said holding his hand up. His attention focused on the CNN monitor. He transferred the signal to the main screen, reducing Monica’s image to a small overlay in the bottom-right corner. Volume came up automatically.
“ . . .still no word on how many miners are trapped. The Norcoal Number Four Mine is a deep-mining coal facility, owned and operated by NorEnergy. This is the third cave-in at Norcoal in the past seven years. Forty-seven miners died in the last . . .”
Cameron was on his feet.
“Cam, you need more rest,” Monica asserted. “Let them handle it.”
He zipped up his flight suit and fastened the collar around his neck. “You know I can’t do that.” He levitated a few feet to clear the desk and shot to the iron door, leaving the video connection with Monica open.
“Cam, your meds. When did you take your meds? Cam!”
He didn’t have super senses, so he didn’t hear her. He was already five miles away.
* * *
“Thank God you’re here, Cameron,” the shift foreman told him as they marched toward the dispatch office. “We’ve had a roof fall and we’ve got twenty-six miners trapped three hundred feet below the surface.”
They trotted up the stairs and the foreman strong-armed the screen door open. It slammed against the opposite wall. Several miners near a wall-sized cut-away of the Norcoal Number Four Shaft Mine made way for them.
“Here we go.” The foreman pointed to a spot on the diagram. “Our roof fall occurred right here.”
“Are you in contact with the trapped miners?”
“Radio contact, yes. They’re all alive, but obviously short on air.”
Cameron nodded and studied the diagram. “Okay. I should be able to dig my way through and shore up an escape tunnel. Can you drill an air vent to them from the surface?”
“Already working on it, but it’s over three hundred feet down. And we have another problem.”
“Which is?”
“After-damp. It’s a build-up of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen. The crew chief’s sensor detected it. It’s minute now, but the increase in carbon dioxide from their breathing in such an enclosed space will accelerate the build-up. The bottom line is they will probably be dead from the after-damp gases before their oxygen runs out.”
“Okay, pull your other men from the mine and continue drilling the air vent from the surface. I’ll work my way to them from the base of the fall.”
“Good luck, Cameron.” The foreman handed him a portable radio.
“Just do me a favor.”
“Anything you need.”
“Keep the press away.”
Cameron wasted no time. He removed a scoop from a front-end loader and used it as a shovel to dig parallel to the tunnel’s base.
The tightness in his chest began subtly. It was so slight, in fact, he barely noticed it. He continued to dig. A voice from his radio confirmed the trapped miners were still alive when Cameron reached seventy-five feet.
At eighty feet, the pain in his shoulder was becoming a distraction. He fought through it and continued to dig as sweat beaded on his forehead.
Ninety feet. The pain intensified. Radio contact with the miners was now sporadic. Several had passed out from the build-up of after damp gases.
Ninety-five feet. The tightness in his chest was mountainous, as if the entire three hundred feet of coal and stone above him lay directly on top of him. His movements slowed, his breathing labored. He remembered in a fog he had slept for over a full day and had not taken his scheduled medication in over thirty hours.
Ninety-eight feet.
So close.
He dropped the scoop and fell to his knees. His vision compressed to a narrow, tear-filled tunnel. He had no memory of digging the remaining few feet with his bare hands before he collapsed.
* * *
“Cam?”
The voice echoed in his head and even before he was fully awake, he was awash with déjà vu.
“Cam, can you hear me?”
He opened his eyes slowly. The smell of hospital disinfectant nearly made him vomit on the spot. He groaned.
“M-Mon . . .”
“I’m here.’
He rolled his head to the side and saw her. “Y-you look like crap.” He forced a rueful smile.
“Yeah, well it’s been a long forty-eight hours.”
“For . . .” He bolted upright and immediately fell back to the bed. His head felt like a cracked pumpkin.
“That was smart. Just lay there, will you?”
“The miners?”
“You got through. The rescue team got them all out. They all survived. You, on the other hand, almost didn’t.”
“I know,” he whispered. He turned away. The television mounted on the wall was muted. MSNBC was on showing footage of the rescue over a scrolling stock ticker.
“Cam, there’s something we need to talk about.”
He turned back to her.
“There may be a way for us to perform cardiac surgery on you and repair that blasted heart of yours.”
“I thought you said you couldn’t cut through my invulnerable hide. I don’t see any IVs sticking into me.”
“At the moment, we can’t. Externally, you’re as invulnerable as ever. But, something happened to you at Con Ellis. We think the radiation you were exposed to weakened your cellular structure for a short time. We were able to get a needle into you and pull some blood. The effects were only temporary, though.”
He glanced back to the television monitor, taking in the scene only peripherally. His thoughts were elsewhere. “So, how does that help me?”
“We think, we believe, we can irradiate your cells with enough radiation to negate your invulnerability. With your skin and bones at normal density, we can perform the surgery.”
He stared at her. “And no more meds?”
“We believe so.”
“I can’t believe it. No more medication? I can live a normal life?”
She hesitated a moment before she replied. “Normal is the optimum word.”
Something in her tone, in her tentativeness, alarmed him. “What are you not telling me?”
“The process would be permanent, Cam. You would lose your abilities. Your strength. Your flight. And your invulnerability.”
The shock of that fact left him cold. No meds. No powers.
He looked away. He would be . . . normal. Normal.
He would feel again. Eat and drink again. Feel the skin of a woman beneath his hands, her body under his.
The news footage continued to loop scenes from the mine rescue. Family members, wives, children, brothers, sisters—they all swarmed the rescued miners. Embracing them. Their tears and joy evident even on the small screen. The long shot broke to a close-up of a weary miner, his face streaked by black coal and sweat, a young woman embracing him tightly, her face buried in his chest. Cameron turned up the volume.
“ . . .and all I can say,” the miner wheezed. “We all would have died if it hadn’t been for Cameron. All of us.”
The woman peeled her head from the miner’s chest and faced the camera, her eyes moist and her cheeks blackened by streams of mascara. “Thank you, Cameron. Wherever you are, thank you for saving my husband and my baby’s daddy.”
Thank you for saving my husband and my baby’s daddy.
The knot in Cameron’s throat would have choked him if he needed to breathe.
He muted the sound and turned back to face Monica.
“No,” he said.
“No, what?”
“No surgery.”
“I don’t understand. Cam this is your chance to live a normal life. To—”
“To do what? Look up there.” He pointed to the television. “If I was normal, as you call it, I wouldn’t have been able to save those men. This is who I am, Monica. This . . . this is my normal.”
She said nothing. Their eyes met and a current of understanding passed between them.
He knew he would need to be more careful. He would have to be religious with his medications, and cautious with his exertions. He looked back at the scene on the television. If he could save only one more person before his heart gave out, just one more . . . it would be worth it.
