Shimmer : A Superhero Fantasy

The world is a big place, bigger than most of us ever get to be – even with all the scares you know that it’s going to outlive you. Never did I think that I would actually watch it end, high in the sky and far from the carnage, but still able to see how far the fire reached.

I could have stopped it, but I failed. I put my faith in the wrong person – an astronaut who I thought was a victim, but she was a monster just like the rest. If I hadn’t have let my guard down, if I’d not been so trusting, she never would have been able to hit the button, and the world below wouldn’t… they wouldn’t…

Mom, Dad, Tanya, Jason – soon they would all be dead, burned to a crisp, or worse. Who would do such a thing? I turned to Dr. Robinson, whose eyes were as hard as the rest of her. It didn’t matter that she was a soldier, and her politics were just as unimportant – how much of her humanity had been taken away to be able to do the thing that she did?

“There’s nothing you can do,” she said.

I couldn’t look out the window – the missiles hadn’t landed yet, but I knew the fire was coming. Maybe there was still time to stop one or two of them, push them off course, but only if I really moved. It wasn’t a victory, not by a long shot, but it was something, right?

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Dr. Robinson watched the girl on the monitor, pounding on the door demanding to be let out. She was a superhero, known to most as ‘Glimmer Girl’, as though that meant something – trapped in the bottom end of their satellite she was helpless as a kitten. It was almost funny seeing such a powerful figure reduced to something so pathetic.

She reached over and took the radio offered to her by the man wearing Taylor’s skin. They were using hand held receivers in place of the satellite’s internal communications – it wouldn’t do for them to be overheard by their guest.

“Glimmer Girl contained,” she reported, not daring to pull her eyes from the screen. She knew all too well that security was only temporary, and that victory was not assured until the seconds on the clock ticked down to zero.

The girl threw herself at the door and wailed, putting the hardened soldier on edge. It would take no effort at all for Glimmer Girl to come blasting through, assuming she could summon the nerve. Though she seemed reluctant and out of her depth ‘Dr. Robinson’ wasn’t going to count on her inaction. Heroes – they were always a wild card in these missions.

“We’re going to have to jettison the tail section,” she hummed, then turned to Taylor. “Baldur, I need you on the panels. We’ll need to adjust our trajectory if we’re going to remain on target.”

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I struggled in the back of a van, trying to get my costume on. It was lucky I’d brought it along – you never know when there might be an emergency, like going on your first date, and finding out that a bunch of nukes could wipe out your country any minute. If that weren’t bad enough I was more than a little drunk, and TASK’s medical solution to that made my head hurt.

Artemis banged on the side door. I couldn’t blame him for being impatient, what with death from above looming over us and all, but I wasn’t going to walk into the field half-naked, especially with Mark there. Talk about having my priorities straight, huh?

Maybe, if I was honest, I would admit I was taking my time. This was an important mission – probably one of the biggest I’d ever be sent on. Did they really think I could handle it? Probably not, especially in my condition. They were desperate, and I had to pull myself together. Gods knew how I’d ever live with myself if I failed.

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Well, I’m sure you all know that it’s winter in Australia, and with winter usually comes the flu, and with the flu comes a lot of symptoms that are too many to name, including the one where your eyes burn and you cannot look at a monitor for more than ten minutes. It really gets in the way.

However, to tide you all over before the next installment (which isn’t too far away) I offer you some commissioned art from Stefano Marinetti. I’m quite impressed with the results, but what do you think?

Until next time.

Love and laughs,
Miranda Sparks

There are days when it feels like the fighting will never stop. No matter what I did or how hard I tried there would be something that put me at loggerheads with the folks, especially Mom. I had to wonder, was she doing this because most mothers and daughters fought? If she was then I could definitely stand some ‘unconventional’ in this dynamic.

So how did we come up with today’s explosion of drama, I hear you ask? Well, it might have had something to do with me being stupid enough to tell the ‘rents where I was going this Saturday night. I know, I know – I brought this on myself.

What followed was the usual gamut of questions – “a date with who?” “Have we met him?” “Does he know that you’re really a boy?” – just to name a few, and more.

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You ever hear one of those arguments between fanboys – ‘who would win in a fight between (insert whoever and whatever here)?’ It doesn’t matter who it is – Jet Li or Van Damme, Mike Tyson or George Foreman, Hulk Hogan or the Easter Bunny, when you’re a superhero you hear that kind of talk all the time.

Yeah, it’s fun banter and a good intellectual exercise, but the reality is a lot different. When two heroes turn against each other for whatever reason it’s a tragedy – good versus good doesn’t do anything to save the world.

Noble lunged, lancing me through the chest with a psionic blade. It hurt – a lot.

Fun fact – when in hard light mode I usually don’t feel pain. However Noble’s powers were different. He was an empath, meaning that not only could he feel the emotions of other people and their pain, but he could inflict it as well. With one touch he could put me in a world of agony, but he wasn’t that cruel – he just wanted it to hurt enough that I would break my concentration.

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Even before it started I knew it was a dream. How could it not be? My house and the school auditorium were the same place, and my usual barista, Gloria, was doing tai chi in front of the Taj Mahal.

Searching the crowd I saw my Mom and Dad, dressed in overalls and top hats, laughing and sharing soda in the front row. I had to talk to them – there was something important I had to say.

Next I found myself pushing through a sea of humans. Weird, but I wasn’t bothered by them – talking to the parentals was way more important. When I finally reached them they turned back, smiled, and gestured for me to speak. Every other ear in the room also wanted to know what I had to say.

“Mom, Dad,” I stumbled, “I’m… I’m a gorilla.”

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Ever have one of those moments where your world is turned upside down and nothing makes sense? This was one of them.

I shook my head hoping that maybe I was just seeing things, but the street was still crawling with… with…! There were hundreds of them – wearing clothes and walking around like they were real people. What was going on!?

Was this supposed to be an invasion? Weird, none of them were armed. Maybe I’d been thrown into the future, to some post-apocalyptic society where I expected Monkey Mark to pop up. Whatever was happening I decided to hop out of there before the inevitable militia showed up.

Shooting like a comet down the heart of town I inspected what was left. Milestone City hadn’t changed a lick, only its inhabitants. Maybe, I wondered, they were transformed – crazy as it was there was bound to be some evil genius out there who wanted to remake the world in their own image.

Their cold, animal eyes glazed over me as I passed. There I was, one gorilla alone in a world of humans – never had I been more terrified.

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A lot of things had changed since my coming out, especially at school. Walking down the hall between classes wasn’t the nightmare it used to be – instead it was now just a fever dream where the beatings and threats had been traded for stares and whispers. That was a step up, right? Sometimes I wasn’t so sure.

Everyone had taken an interest. It didn’t matter if you were supportive or not so supportive, it was still the hot button topic. “Hey, Justin Cade’s supposed to be a girl now.” Was it really so scandalous? Okay, so transgender peeps hadn’t been an everyday thing for a lot of people, but that was in the past, and it wasn’t that big a deal, surely. Hopefully they’d get used to the idea, and fast.

At least Tanya was there to act like everything was normal, at least for the most part. Even if Jason’s arrival had put a dent into our dynamic I could still count on her to have my back in the confines of high school, especially when that jerk-off bully Adrian Dempsey came lumbering by.

“Hate rays at nine o’clock,” she mumbled before calling across the crowd. “Haven’t you got somewhere to be, Frankenstein – like maybe going to get your bolts tightened!?”

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Hey Shimmerphiles,

In case some of you haven’t noticed I’ve begun a new superhero blog serial – True Blue and the Southern Cross Six, chronicling the adventures of an Australian superhero team battling monsters from the Dreamtime. It’s only in its infancy, so I recommend you get in now.

Why isn’t it on this particular blog? Well, the reason is simply that the chapters are shorter, so they’ll likely come out with greater frequency, and the last thing I want to do is drown out the Glimmer Girl content I’ve currently got on the front page. So, True Blue and his mates needed a new home, and you can find a link to it in the sidebar, or follow updates on Twitter or either of my Facebook fan pages.

Look forward to new Shimmer coming out soon, and until next time, take care!

Love and laughs,
Miranda Sparks