Robert Crane - Untouched

“‘Busy’?” I looked out the window behind Old Man Winter, who was sitting placidly behind his desk as always. His eyes had yet to remove themselves from me since I walked in, but I was used to it. It wasn’t like he was undressing me mentally—at least I didn’t think he was—it was more like he was always assessing, testing me, my willpower. I could swear he read the lies in how I moved, my reluctance to even be here. I worried that if he stared long enough, he’d be able to root out that I was carrying my own worst enemy inside my head, and that wasn’t figurative speaking. “I’d hate to see what you’d be talking about if you started pulling out the really descriptive adjectives—you know, like calamitous, explosive, apocalyptic—”

“Yes, well.” She cut me off, her politeness for once infused with iron. “It’s not as though this is the usual for us.”

“Sure, sure,” I said in what sounded to me a very Midwestern way. “Last week, near-invincible psychos, this week, men who explode into flames and girls who touch the dead and bring them back to life.”

“Even for us,” she said, “that’s not normal.”

“When you’re dealing with people who have powers like ours, what is?” I said it airily, but the word stuck in my head. Normal. What was normal? Everything I wasn’t, at this point. “Is this about the history lesson I asked for?”

“Yes.” Ariadne seated herself next to me. “It’s also a briefing on the state of meta affairs in the modern age.”

“Ooh, a briefing,” I said. “I feel like I should be wearing a colorless pantsuit.” I blinked at Ariadne, dressed once more in monochromatic businesswear. “Like that.” I blanched inside and Wolfe howled with laughter, the first sound he’d made since last night. The sad part was I couldn’t blame that one on him; there was something built into my relationship with Ariadne that made me want to insult her more than anything.

Her face was drawn, her eyes lowered. I wondered, far in the back of my mind where I hoped Wolfe couldn’t see it, if my constant slings and arrows at her were actually hurting her feelings. If so, she should get thicker skin , Wolfe said, shattering my illusory idea of having private thoughts. I rolled my eyes, possibly insulting Ariadne further. Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell her that I wasn’t rolling them at her, but at the asshole brainclinger.

Old Man Winter stood, drawing my attention from Ariadne. He pulled himself up to his full height, towering over the two of us, and walked to the window, looking out on the campus. He seemed to focus on the remains of the science building in the distance. I waited for him to say something, and after a minute of silence I spoke. “How can you manage to keep this place secret after an explosion like that?” I looked from him to Ariadne. “It’s not like that was quiet; it had to be audible for miles around.”

“There is nobody around for miles,” Ariadne said. “But you’re right, it was heard in the next town over. Fortunately, the local law enforcement are in our back pocket, which means it won’t be investigated, and it seems the media is still too focused on Wolfe’s reign of terror to give this any thought.”

“Got your own little cover up going on,” I said with grudging admiration. “I suppose you guys have it all figured out, keeping things secret and hidden from the normal world.”

“It has not always been so,” Old Man Winter spoke finally, his low timbre crackling with a surprising amount of energy. “But the modern history of metahumans has been one of hiding our existence from the rest of the world, of letting ourselves fade into myth and legend and cloaking our activities so that humanity does not become suspicious of those of us who have abilities beyond theirs.”

“You were around when metas walked tall and proud,” I said. I couldn’t see his reaction, not even in his reflection, but I suspected it was insubstantial. “Why the change?”

“Why, indeed?” His hand reached out and touched the window. “Metahumans did not just walk among humans in the days you speak of, they ruled mankind. We were gods among men. A thousand humans with spears and swords could not defeat a single strong metahuman. Entire armies tried and were wiped out in battles so bloody that they became the stuff of legend—and we became the bane of human existence and the single greatest obstacle to the freedom of men.

“Imagine a meta possessed of the will to become a conqueror, someone with the strength of a man like Wolfe, but more cunning and less psychotic.” I heard a grumble in my head from Wolfe at Old Man Winter’s assessment of him. “That was the story of a hundred dictators who threw their will onto the huddled masses of humankind, over and over again through the millennia, from the Greek gods of old to later, more subtle attempts of men like Rasputin to assert their influence over world powers.”

“Why were the later ones less obvious?” I asked him out of genuine curiosity.

“Your experience in fighting metahumans is colored by your encounter with Wolfe.” He was calm, dead calm. “Most metas are not immune to bullets. Technology has been the greatest equalizer for mankind. Whereas a superpowered metahuman might defeat an entire army in the old days, now he must contend with rifles and machine guns, bombs and explosives. Against the might of a modern army, with training, discipline, and handheld weapons with more ability to kill than entire armies of the ancient world, all but the most powerful among us would fall. Take yourself for example.” He turned to me, those ice blue eyes seeming to glow against the backdrop of the gloomy sky.

“In the days of old, one with your power and strength, the ability to kill with a touch, to move faster than any human foe, with power enough to kill in a single blow and drain them with agonizing pain should they touch you—you would have been a goddess. Because of your speed, your dexterity, your strength, with a sword in your hand, you could have killed a thousand men and watched the rest flee in fear. Even the arrows of archers would have to have been lucky indeed to bring you down.

“But now, a man with a single gun could end your life with a well-placed shot.” His finger traced a line ending at his forehead. “Certainly, you are more resilient than a human, and a wound to anything but your head would not kill you, but if one knows what they are facing…well,” his voice trailed off for a moment, “it’s not as though bullets and bombs are a commodity that mankind is soon to run out of.”

“So metas have spent a good portion of history trying to conquer people.” I shrugged. “Not a huge surprise. I’ve studied history. Why should we be any different than the rest of mankind?”

“Because we can be better,” he said with a low intonation. “The story of mankind is one fraught with struggle, true enough. But it is also the tale of a people reaching for more, desiring more than to be static, immovable, and mired in the mistakes of the past. If we are to be nothing more than a warlike people, forever locked in a struggle for dominance, then the metahumans are of no more purpose than any other weapon or person of power in the modern age.

“The need for secrecy has become a paramount concern, especially as governments possess more and more means to control metahumans.” His eyes were dull, almost sad. “We dare not challenge them openly, and thus far America has been content to let us rest in the shadows so long as we are not an open threat. I have worked with those in charge of the country’s response to metahuman incidents. They have little to no desire to round up a small minority of people for internment or worse so long as we keep a low profile. Other governments…” His words drifted off, along with his gaze, “…are not so reticent.”