Night of the Thunderbolt
"Craig, you coming?" the manager bellowed. "I want to get home."
Craig sighed and shouted back. "We still need to clean the restrooms!"
"Leave them for the morning crew!"
Craig sighed and quickly put away the mop and bucket. The Dairy Queen at Broadway and Lakewood had a reputation for being one of the most rundown restaurants in the city, largely because of the neglect of the managers. In many ways, it was an extension of the misfortunes of much of East Vancouver, a lower middle class and ethnic portion of the city that had been hit hard by the current economic crisis. 1983 had not been a good year so far, though the mayor and the province were already working toward the extravagance of a world's fair that was due in 1986. A chance for the rich folks in downtown to have a moneygasm, Craig thought in disgust while he packed the supplies. They promised jobs and influx of capital: Craig doubted anyone he knew would see it. He did a quick inspection of the grill, when a sound from the boss's office caught his ear.
"Hey! We may be new on the scene, but I assure you that we're on top of the situation. There's no room for terrorists in the city of Vancouver."
Through a snowy picture. Craig's boss was listening to the late news on a small color television set. A few weeks ago, a new superhero team had formed in the city, SUNDER -- Craig wasn't sure what the acronym stood for, probably something ridiculous like "Superheroes United to Neutralize Destructive Evil Renegades" or something. Led by the enigmatic Shamus (who reminded Craig of the rock star Sting, if Sting dressed up like Sam Spade) the team had gone to war with VIPER almost as soon as it was formed. Tonight, the green-clad terrorists had tried to retrieve something from the foundation stone of an old, demolished building. The "snakes" (as they were popularly called) had been soundly defeated, but even Shamus's telepathic prowess couldn't get the location of the local VIPER base from the captured agents.
"What a ridiculous outfit," the boss sneered, snickering at the television. Craig wasn't sure which of the heroes had elicited that response, nor did he care. The posters of Beowulf and the two generations of Red Ensign on Craig's walls spoke to his love of superheroes, despite mockery from his big brother Jack, six years his senior, who was openly contemptuous of the "fricking muscles and ballet tights club".
Craig finished the job hurriedly, a little disgusted with himself. He continued to think about the heroes. He had never actually seen a superhero. He had never even seen a VIPER agent, despite all the headlines that implied they were hiding in every nook and cranny of the city. Supervillains avoided the east end of Vancouver, there was no money there, so why would they come here? Craig had been at the Pacific National Exhibition that time Sleeper stole the cars from the big wooden roller coaster as part of some "riddle crime", but he never saw that villain either, just angry kids and their parents who walked away from disgust from a roller coaster that no one could ride. What a jerk.
"Craig, you done yet!" The manager's tone was no longer questioning.
"Yeah," he said with a sigh, making sure the lock on the backdoor was working and the alarm was on. He had worked a few morning shifts on weekends where they had weren't. The manager turned off the television and trotted out of the office with the day's receipts. He didn't offer Craig a ride, of course.
It was four kilometers from the Dairy Queen to Craig's house, on a clear cold March evening. Craig arrived at a bus stop only to spot the Number Nine speeding away: the clicking and sparking on the trolly lines almost seemed to mock him. At this late hour, it'd be a half hour wait before the next one showed. "I'd better hoof it." Craig muttered to himself stoically, and he began to run home.
Running was therapy for the young man, therapy for long days of work and more work. Since his mom's death, times were tough enough that Craig expected to drop out of school to help his brother as soon as he turned 16. But that was still two years away, in a hazy unseeable future, so Craig worked for sub-minimum wage at the DQ and gave the money to bolster their income and help pay the mortgage. It was the responsible way to live, but why was being responsible so damn hard? He wondered whether superheroes had to be responsible, whether Shamus had made enough money as a psychic detective to retire on, or whether Avenger, terror of local criminals, kept the money he took from his raids (as one of the mayor candidates alleged) or whether they were honest and true. He wanted to think they worked as hard as Jack or himself. Heroes aren't lazy, right?
He had worked up a good sweat by the time he'd finished climbing the low hills around Commercial Drive, and pushed himself into a sprint. He ran through one red light -- the intersection was deserted -- and continued sprinting until he reached Nanaimo St., where he turned north to face the lights of the North Shore, the lights of the ski lift of Whistler and Grouse Mountain visible as star-like dots on the dark mountainsides. Vancouver was a claustrophobe's nightmare, surrounded on three sides by mountains and on the fourth side by Burrard Inlet, itself sheltered from the sea by the great mass of Vancouver Island.
The avenues passed swiftly as Craig pushed himself: 8th Ave., 7th Ave., 6th, 5th, 4th.... He stopped at the red light at 1st avenue, bypassing the 7-11 and the temptation of a Coke Slurpee, and continued running down Nanaimo. A few blocks north, he could hear the banging sound of very loud percussion music, coming from a nightclub. It was a small punk club. Craig wasn't a punk rock fan: at best, he was a metalhead, and AC/DC was about as close to punk as he wanted to get, the charms of DOA, the Dead Kennedys, and I, Braineater being lost on him. Still, Craig was a tolerant man at heart, and willing to let the punks enjoy their music, as long as they kept a safe distance and didn't insult his Zepellin albums.
He was prepared to run past it, but something caught his eye. There was a four storey commercial complex next to it, and several drunken patrons from the club had spilled out and they were making a ruckus. Normally, he might have ignored it, but one word shouting over the din caught his attention and wouldn't let go.
"Jump!"
The word was repeated by several of the other drunken rowdies, until it became a war chant. Craig slowed to a walk, slightly winded, and crept over to the area to see what was happening. By chance, a light at the top of the building illuminated a woman, standing nervously on the edge of the roof, looking down four storeys to the pavement. She looked young, though in the darkness it was almost impossible to get any facial detail or tell her age with any certainty. She wasn't swaying, so she didn't like she was drunk or overdosing, though some of the onlookers thought she was "high". "Jump! Jump! Jump!" came the chant, led by a huge man with an out of date (even for 1983) mohawk hairstyle who looked like he had a trace of First Nations blood and an "X' tattooed to his face; the other ringleader was a younger, smaller but still athletic man of Chinese extraction who had the letter "Z' tattooed. Craig wouldn't have known they were bouncers at the club, nicknamed "Punk X" and "Punk Z". Their paths would cross again, but not here.
Craig felt a hammer blow to his stomach: how can anyone, even stoned or drunk, want to see someone plummet to their death? Some might argue he had an overly charitable view of the human condition. This charity no longer applied to the punk sub-culture; muttering an uncharacteristic obscenity, he surveyed the area, hoping to see a pay phone. There would be one in the Club, but something told him he might not be well-received there, and that it would take too long for the cops to arrive even if he could use it without being hassled. He was tired, but there were a series of fire escapes, and Craig was pretty strong, especially for his lanky build. Getting to the first level was just a leap and a chin up, and then he was scuttling like a spider up a web. It almost made him feel like a superhero.
It was an easy climb to the fourth storey, but jumping up to the roof, gripping the edge with his hands and kicking his feet up, now that was a trick. Nonetheless, the possibility that he would fall never occurred to him. The woman needed help, and he was the only one who could do it. His feet gripped the ledge and with hands and feet secure on the ledge, he struggled to roll himself onto the roof. He caught a glimpse of the pavement below and nearly froze -- you don't quite realize how far off the ground you are until you're dangling with one wrong move away from a thirty to forty foot drop. With a hard puff and a strained hoist, Craig shifted onto the roof and got to his feet. He cautiously approached the woman as if she were a deer, easily frightened, holding out his hands.
"Don't listen to them," Craig said, the words just coming into his mouth seemingly without conscious deliberation. "I don't know your problems, but it's a big world out there. I'm sure if you look hard enough, you'll find something to live for."
"You're sure about that?" the woman asked, her head bowed and her gaze fixated on the pavement and the fall.
"Absolutely." Craig said, becoming increasingly nervous by the second. Does he get close enough to grab her if she tries to jump? Or will she jump if he gets too close? It didn't occur to him that he was in danger too. Craig decided that it was better to talk, at least for now. "There's a lot of good things out there, especially for someone who's..." his speech faltered as he found himself about to say things that were awkward to say. "...for a woman like you."
"You're a kid," the woman said. "What do you know about life?" There was an odd lack of emotion in her voice, in the back of his mind, Craig expected anger or bitterness. Instead she seemed serenely calm, and that frightened him more than anything.
Craig gulped but tried not to sure his nervousness. "I may be a kid, but honestly, I've had struggles. And maybe yours are worse than mine. I'm not living on the street, I don't do drugs, and i still have one family member who I get along with who's raising me. I'm real certain about one thing."
"What?" the woman asked.
"That life is worth fighting for," Craig answered. Even if you don't win, like mom. She looked like a mummy on that bed in her final week and she still fought, even when everytime Craig looked on her, he burst into tears.
The woman smiled, and looked at Craig, and for an instant, her eyes changed and even on the poorly lit roof on a dark evening in late February, Craig could see them clearly. They were his mother's eyes, bright and proud as they looked on her gangly son, blue as Burrard Inlet on a sunny summer day. Craig gasped, and then the eyes went dark, dark as storm clouds, and then a flash of electricity passed through them.
"You are worthy, Craig Carson, to command the power of Living Thunder," she proclaimed.
Without even lifting her hand, there was a flash out of the open sky. The first lightning bolt caught the roof ten feet from him, and the flash nearly blinded him. The second one caught him square, ironically not in an extremity, but dead center in the chest. The world became an explosion, the sound of thunder, and ears and eyes became useless. There was a strange feeling inside of Craig, a sense of strength and manhood that overwhelmed even the pain of being electrocuted. It was the greatest feeling of Craig Carson's young life, and his face bore a wide smile as it plummeted. The fall barely registered on him. His body -- or was it his, for it was now swollen and naked -- fell to the ground like a stone. Punk X and Punk Z cheered and high-fived each other and a few others followed their lead in celebrating what at first glance looked like a fatal fall, but the majority were suddenly silent. It was not just by the sound of a thud and a crack on pavement, and not by the miraculous lack of blood (the head had hit the pavement first) but the body itself. Craig's form was replaced by something else. At 6'7", what was once Craig Carson was now nearly a foot taller, and at 280 pounds of very powerfully packed muscle, he looked like he belonged in a bodybuilding competition. Craig lay still and naked on the pavement below, the fall shocking him into unconsciousness.
Craig awoke in a hospital ward. If the windows had been opened, he might have identified it as a ward secured for prisoners in Vancouver General Hospital. He was surrounded by medical instruments, one of which was crudely hooked inside his mouth, and strapped to a bed. He didn't realize that every attempt to prod him with a needle or an IV had resulted in the quick breakage of the needle.
"Mom... mom..." he moaned, his vision a doubled blur and his skull ringing like the bells atop Westminster Abbey.
Craig 's vision finally cleared, and he saw a member of the Vancouver Police with a pistol trained on him. "Don't shoot!" he shouted, suddenly realizing his voice was well over an octave lower than it should have been. The motion of his arm snapped the heavy straps like a rotting kite string, and he suddenly realized how thick his arm was -- it was a massive tree limb of muscle. Looking down, he could see his bulging pectorals straining against the fabric of the loosely tied hospital robe. He repeated an obscenity over and over again.
"Freeze!" the cop shouted. Outside the room, the man's partner readied a shotgun.
"I'm freezing!" Craig said, inadvertently breaking his entire upper body out of the straps as he held up his hands. "Don't shoot! You might hurt someone!" The cop began to cock the trigger, but Craig's position of surrender managed to keep him from firing. "See! I'm not moving! I didn't do anything, please don't kill me!"
"What's your name?" the cop demanded. Craig fell silent. "What is your name?" the officer repeated.
Craig thought for a moment, still terrified but not terrified out of his wits. "Jack. Jack Carstairs," he answered with a lie. "What happened to me?" he added.
"You got high," the officer said. "You fell naked from a four storey building."
"I wasn't high. I don't do drugs, honest!"
"When the doctors tried to take blood samples, they couldn't. So they called us in. Vancouver Metahuman Unit."
"I'm not a superhero. I'm just a kid," Craig said and then he analyzed his voice. It sounded adult. "How old do I look?"
"Mid-to-late 20s," the officer said, gun still trained on him. It took everything Craig had to avoid panicking,
"I didn't do anyrhing!" Craig protected "I only wanted to help the woman."
"Woman?" the officer asked. "What woman? Witnesses said they saw you -- and only you -- naked on the roof throwing around lightning bolts."
"That's impossible," Craig countered. "She was there, I swear, they wanted her to jump..." he sighed and then he paused to consider his circumstances. "This is crazy. I'm no supervillain, right? You looked in the files, and you didn't see any supervillains who looked like me."
"No," the cop said, weapon still trained.
"Then please let me go. My brother will be worried sick. and I have school tomorrow," Craig begged.
"Not until you've identified yourself and taken some tests," the cop said. "UNTIL is on its way. We would like you to cooperate, and we're sure we can handle this without anyone being hurt."
Craig shook his head. "I've done nothing wrong."
"Public nudity, trespassing onto the roof of a commercial establishment, and causing a public disturbance," the officer replied, gun still trained. "Damage to public property from those lightning bolts..."
Craig took several deep breaths and then looked the officer directly in the eyes. Craig had no idea how intimidating that was, not yet. He swallowed hard to collect his composure. "Okay. I have muscles on top of my muscles, needles won't penetrate my skin, and I survived being hit by lightning and falling fifty feet," he said, slightly exaggerating the distance. "That makes me a superhero. And bullets bounce off superheroes, right? The mob tried to shoot Vanguard how many times?"
The officer trembled, but steeled himself. "You wanna bet on that? That's pretty stupid, Jack."
"Maybe, maybe not," Craig said. "Look, this just happened to me, and you're pulling a gun on me? You want to stick me in a lab? I can't deal with this, not yet."
"This isn't some government conspiracy," the officer claimed. "But we have to protect the general public whenever a new meta appears." he added. Clearly he was still nervous, even Craig could see it. The young Vancouverite found the argument unconvincing. "We can't be too careful until we're sure you don't represent a threat to the general public."
Craig mulled over his words, desperate to find some way to extracate himself from the situation that wouldn't get him shot or turn into a fugitive. "So I'm a threat?"
"Potentially, yes." the officer replied.
"You're holding a gun on me. What happens to you if you fire on me and it doesn't get the job done?"
"That's a risk I have to take." the officer said.
"Is it?" Craig wondered. "That sounds like a stupid rule to me. If I were the one making the rules, I'd include something about making sure the target is a threat before bringing the threat of violence."
The officer sighed.
"What are the guidelines regarding use of force?" Craig asked.
"Protect yourself." the officer said curtly, after a long pause. Even Craig could tell the man was lying.
"If you and I get along, you're protecting yourself," the young Vancouverite said. "Please put the gun away. You and I both know that if I was a genuine threat, I'd have done something by now. Thrown a lightning bolt or something. I haven't, okay?" Craig argued. "Have I acted like a threat to you?"
The officer looked Craig in the eyes, nodded, and finally holstered the weapon. "Thanks," Craig said.
"Just be warned, my partner is outside, and if you try anything..."
"I get it." Craig said, and he gave the officer a long look. "You're in the meta unit. You must have had some real rough experiences with supervillains to be this cautious." he said.
"A few," the officer affirmed.
"What happened?"
"We're not allowed to talk about it." the man replied.
"You know, if I decide to be a superhero, it'd be good to know what I'm facing, now." Craig said. "Hearing it from your perspective might help me avoid screw-ups with you guys."
The officer huffed. "Worst one was three months ago." he finally said. "We had a lead on the Brotherhood. But the trap was on us. The damn Spectre just toyed with us. Picked four of us off, one by one, like a shooting gallery. He let the rest of us go. An object lesson. Then last week, two of us were diagnosed with cancer. Terminal."
"That's awful," Craig said.
"He was supposed to be a hero too," the officer said. Black Spectre had been a hero once, until he tried to absorb the radiation from the Chernobyl disaster, and it broke his mind.
"My mom died of liver cancer." Craig blurted.
"Seriously?" the officer asked. Craig nodded.
"It wasn't long ago," he added, after a long pause.
"I'm sorry to hear that." the officer replied.
"She used to tell me everything had a purpose. Even when she was dying, she told me there was a reason behind it." Craig said. It suddenly occurred to him that it was unwise to divulge such personal information to the cops, at least, not until he had proven himself. It was at that moment that Craig realized he was going to become a superhero. He broke free of the leg straps and got to his feet, the gown barely covering his front section. The officer gave a hand signal to his partner to stand down.
"My belief in what she said is what's kept me going. I don't know what my purpose is, but I don't think it's to stay in some lab and go through tests. And I don't think your purpose is to shoot someone who wants to help." Craig said. "Let me go."
The officer lowered his head in dismay. "I'm throwing my career down the toilet," he muttered.
"My brother's a plumber. I've seen lots of toilets get fixed," Craig responded, smiling. "If I become a big superhero, then maybe I can put in a good word. The police listens to superheroes, right?"
"You have a lot to learn about police," the officer stated, knowing how little respect SUNDER had with Vancouver's PD. The only hero who got along with them was a minor vigilante named Acrobat, and even that relationship was strained at times.
"Well, Captain East Vancouver will not forget you," Craig promised with a grin.
The officer shook his head. "Can you do me a favor? Get another name, please? One that's a little shorter?"
Craig sighed. "Fine," he said.
The officer nodded. "I don't get why would want to dress up in one of those damn tight suits and go out there. After eight years on the force, I wonder why anyone would become a cop too. You say that you have ideals and I believe you, but you're going to be dealing with the scum of the earth day in and day out. making more life and death decisions than God, and the media and the government will be breathing down your necks every step of the way. On a good day, you'll be convinced that three-quarters of your colleagues are fricking insane, and on the bad days, you'll think you're the only sane man left alive. You'll come home from work incredibly bored because you had to stake out a place for twelve hours in the vain hope of dredging up one piece of information that will lead you to the bad guys, or you'll come home battered, beaten, unappreciated and betrayed. Being a superhero has to suck. You know what I'd do if I woke up looking like you?"
"What?"
The officer looked at the huge, perfectly sculpted man-god in front of him, and then down at his own somewhat less toned arms and stomach. "Get laid," he said. "Every fricking day." he added, chuckling.
Craig pondered this statement. Pick up girls or become a superhero? He considered how he acted around girls at school, how their comments could sting him at times, and how the ones he most wanted to date were the ones least likely to say yes, or who had permanent boyfriends among the "cool" set. Superhero, he decided. Superhero would definitely be easier.
Craig nodded at the officer. "Uh thanks for your advice, mister." he said, and he began to walk out.
"You really gonna walk out in that hospital gown?" the officer asked.
"I'll need to find clothes," Craig said, looking up and down his body. He probably would be spending the rest of the day just staring at himself. A wave of thoughts occurred that almost overwhelmed him. What do I tell Jack? Can I ever change back, or is this who I am forever? Did I just lose fifteen years of my life? How am I going to go to school looking like this? How does a person become a superhero? What's my superhero name going to be?
The officer nodded and pulled out a business card. Ernest Weston it read, along with his home address and telephone. The man wrote down a second address. "I have an apartment, but my sister has a house with a back yard and some privacy," he said. "Meet me there in an hour. I'll have some gym clothes for you. And if you need to talk or even a place to stay for a few days, I guess I can offer it." he said. "In the meantime, I really would consider UNTIL. They'll have a place where you can see what you can do, and you'll talk with others who've gone through the same thing."
Craig nodded. "Maybe later. Right now I want to see what I can do myself."
"I'd probably be the same way," the officer admitted. "And if I can tell the force I'm keeping an eye on you, I may only get out of this with only a demotion."
Craig nodded. The next step he took would be the start of a walk down a very long road, the road of heroes.
Eventually the young man would become one of the most famous superhumans in Canada, respected around the globe for strength, fairness and character, compassion toward the weak, courage in the face of impossible odds, loyalty to friends and teammates, and humility despite possessing the powers of a god. He would be one of the few who usually held true to the tenets of his trade without becoming a cliché or an embarrassment. But for now he was a gawky fourteen year old in a body that defied reason, a man who could move mountains. He had a lot to learn, real fast.