Nemesis

“Wow, your place is a mess!”

The voice was coming from the other room. I thought I recognized it—but that made no sense, because why would he be here?

“Ah, there you are—damn, you look like crap.”

I craned my neck from where I was lying on my sofa and was surprised to see that, in fact, he was here. I vaguely thought, oh, shit, but didn’t quite have the energy to say it out loud.

“You left your front door unlocked.”

I said nothing, looking away.

“I mean, how irresponsible. You never know who could show up and just walk right into your house.” He chuckled to himself.

“Just…do it,” I said, closing my eyes and bracing myself.

“What?” he asked after a second.

“Just…blast me, or whatever. I know that’s why you’re here.”

He was silent for another moment. “I’m not here to blast you, Cameron. God, you’re an idiot. Haven’t you been reading my texts?”

The ones he’d sent me every day for the last three weeks saying “where r u moron?”

“No. How did you even get my number—don’t answer that. If you’re not here to blast me, why are you here?”

He looked at me, taking in my pathetic form. Lying on a messy sofa in a messy room. There were dirty dishes on the coffee table and clothes scattered about the floor.

“I missed you,” he said. He smirked.

“Screw you,” I told him, rolling my eyes, then closing them again. “Get out of my house.”

“Nah.” He brushed some—thankfully non-fragile—stuff off the table and sat on it. I stared at him.

“What.”

“What?”

“Why are you here?”

“Because,” he started, “being a supervillain is, like, super mega boring when there’s no superhero foiling your plans all the time. You wouldn’t know that, since you’re not a supervillain. But I’m just telling you. It’s true.”

“Shouldn’t you be…like…happy I’m not trying to stop you? Wouldn’t that be every villain’s dream?”

“Yeah, so, you’d think that, except you clearly didn’t listen to anything I just said.” He sighed. “Supervillains…we don’t do it for money or power.” He paused. “Well, yes we do. But we don’t only do it for money or power. We also do it for the thrill. The chase. For being foiled, then figuring out how to foil the foiler with better foil—okay, too much foil, but you get what I’m saying.”

“Not particularly.”

He made a frustrated noise and pantomimed a strangling motion.

“Okay, fine, you meathead. Let me lay it out for you in Stupid terms, then: Just fight me already.”

“...what?”

“Okay, I know you are not actually this dumb,” he said, standing. He took a step closer, until he was leaning over me. “Just. Fight. Me.”

“No.”

“Why not?!” He threw his hands up—he really seemed frustrated about this.

“I don’t want to fight you, Julian!”

“You don’t want to do anything!”

“Yup. You got me. Is that all? You’re invited to get out now, thanks.”

“Nope,” said Julian. “I’m not leaving until we throw some hands.”

“Are you a masochist, or something? Why do you want me to fight you?”

“Because that’s what you’re supposed to do, Cameron!” He turned to pace. “You’re a superhero. You protect the weak, enforce justice, yadda yadda yadda. People like you fight people like me, who try to, you know, corrupt stuff and take over stuff and steal stuff and whatever else we do. Okay? So excuse me if I think it’s stupid that you’ve basically been M.I.A. for almost a month!”

“Are you done?” I asked.

“No! In fact! I am not done!” He gestured to the room. “I am even more disappointed to see you’ve been doing absolutely jack-shit for the last month!”

“So, staying home was supposed to mean I didn’t have to deal with you…” I muttered.

“Cameron, it’s your job to deal with me. Why aren’t you doing it?”

I sniffed, not looking at him. “Because,” I said. I was so eloquent.

“That—is not a fucking reason, man. Fight me.”

“Too tired.”

“Uh huh. Bullshit, Cameron! Get up.”

“Don’t wanna.”

“You are acting like a child. Get up.”

“You can’t tell me what to do.” Now I was starting to get a bit angry. “You called me a superhero. You said I protect the weak and enforce justice—but you’re wrong! I’m no superhero! And I can’t save anyone! I’m just some loser who can teleport, and it’s time I started acting like one.”

“Shut up, dude.”

“You shut up.”

“No. I’m serious, Cam.” Cam. I bristled. Only she ever called me that. “You are not a fucking loser, Cameron. You are the best fucking superhero this city has ever fucking seen. Even if your hair is a little weird.”

“Who said anything about my hair—”

“You have saved—so many people,” Julian continued, ignoring me. “You help this city sleep at night. You can’t just abandon them like this.”

“I can’t. I can’t do it, Julian. I’m sorry.” I closed my eyes. I heard Julian sigh.

“Look—Jessie wouldn’t want this for you.”

My eyes flew open. “Don’t talk about her,” I warned him.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But you know I’m right. Jessie would want you out there, fighting crime, just like always.”

“I said don’t talk about her!”

“Cameron. I am so sorry about what happened to her. It’s awful, really. But everything she did was to help you keep this city safe. I think you would honor her much more if you continued what the two of you started.”

“Don’t talk about her like you knew her.”

Julian put his hands up. “You’re right. I didn’t really know her. But I do know she was a freaking awesome sidekick—and that she hit really, really hard. Damn, that woman could throw a punch.” He rubbed his arm, as if feeling a phantom bruise.

“I wish she would punch you now.”

“I wish you would punch me now! Do it!”

“No.”

“Cameron, stop punishing yourself for what happened to her! It’s not your fault!”

“Well, it feels like it is!”

It was almost the worst part that she hadn’t been on duty when it happened. She’d just been driving home from work, like any regular person—and bam. No matter how many villains she’d helped take down or how many evil plans she’d helped dismantle, there had been nothing she could do against a forty-ton truck.

And I hadn’t been there.

I would never, ever forget the look on Mark’s face when he told me his wife was dead.

Julian crouched next to me, and I avoided his gaze, trying not to let the tears fall from my eyes.

“It’s not your fault, Cameron,” he said, uncharacteristically soft. “There was nothing you could do—”

“That’s the worst part!” I yelled.

“I know,” Julian said. “I know.” He awkwardly patted me on the shoulder a couple of times. I glared.

“Screw off,” I told him.

“Sorry.” He withdrew his hand. “But look. I know you’re going through a rough time right now. I’m not here to make this harder for you, okay? I know it feels like nothing matters anymore. But that’s not true, okay? The world is still spinning. Bad people are still doing bad things. Like me,” he said, standing. “I mean, I literally robbed a bank earlier today and no one did anything. I just walked away. No one chased after me. Can you believe that? I almost returned the money, just ’cause it felt so wrong that they let me get away with it.”

“Sounds like I should stay out of the game,” I noted. He shook his head.

“No, because I didn’t return it. It’s in my car. Don’t worry. I haven’t totally lost it.”

He made a face at the skeptical look I gave him.

“Please, Cameron,” Julian said after a minute. “Just come back and fight me.”

“I don’t get why you’re trying to help me. Shit, this is probably a trap, isn’t it. Well, fuck, you got me, Jules.”

“Jules—ha! You haven’t called me that since we were nineteen!” He cackled. “Damn, does the time fly….”

“Just leave, Julian. Go rob another bank, or something.”

“I’m not gonna go rob another bank—should I go rob another bank? No! I’m focusing! It’s not a trap, Cameron,” he said. I shrugged.

“Why should I believe you?” I asked, listless.

“Because. This is entirely self-interested. I want you to fight me so everything can go back to normal—”

“Nothing can ever be normal!” I shouted, sitting up a little. “Jessie is dead, Julian! I can’t be a superhero if I don’t have my best friend with me!”

Julian was quiet. Slowly, he sat back on the table.

“Can you…tell me about her?” he asked, tentative. I looked at him. Shrugged.

“I…she was great,” I said, and it was like the words were being pulled from my stomach. “Jessie was the best. She was so kind, and funny.”

“You guys met in high school, right? I remember she was helping you kick my butt, even back then.”

I nodded, half-smiling. “Yeah. She’s been—she was with me even before all the superhero crap started.” I looked at Julian, certain he was up to something. But he just seemed interested. He made a motion, like go on. “I—we met in, I think, our freshman year. Yeah. I was getting the shit beat out of me by a bunch of asshole upperclassmen—and she just—came out of nowhere. She was, like, ‘hey, losers! Go pick on someone else before I call the principal on you!’”

“And that worked?”

I laughed once. “No. They just laughed at her and kept hitting me. But then she came over and socked one of the guys in the face, and he just—gaped at her, like she was some creature he’d never seen before. And then they walked away, I guess ’cause it was embarrassing to be hit by a girl.”

“Damn,” Julian said.

“Yeah.” I found myself smiling a little. “Jessie…Jessie was my superhero.” My voice sounded a little choked—but there was no way in hell I was going to cry in front of Julian.

“It…sounds like she was a really great person,” Julian ventured.

“She was,” I said, reining in my emotions. “She helped me figure out my powers. If not for her, I’d probably still be teleporting into brick walls and billboards.” I glanced at Julian. He cracked a smile, as if remembering his own brick-wall-and-billboard phase. “I don’t know if I’d even be a superhero if she hadn’t pushed me to do it,” I mused. “I remember when you started. We saw that headline, and she was like, ‘Cam, did you rob a convenience store, or is there just another idiot who touched the weird piece of alien metal?’” I chuckled a little, and glanced at the other idiot. He was smiling ruefully.

“Guilty,” he said.

“So that was about when I started doing the vigilante thing—but I could never have done it without Jessie teaching me to fight and telling me what to do over the comm—the comm, it was just my Apple Watch back then….”

“Damn, so I’m, like—technically part of your superhero origin story? That is so cool. Or possibly incredibly lame, I can’t decide which.”

“This isn’t about you.”

“Everything is about me.”

I rolled my eyes. “People called her my sidekick, but I always felt she was running things. Nothing happened without Jessica Davis calling the shots.”

“This explains a lot about you.”

“Shut up.”

“You know, it’s great you had someone to help you learn the ropes with your powers. I mean, it could be kinda lonely sometimes, dealing with all that on my own. It…might’ve been nice to have someone like that helping me out.”

“Well, you could’ve…joined us,” I said, vocalizing something neither of us had ever quite said out loud. “It could’ve been the three of us, fighting crime. But you always did prefer to fly solo. And steal stuff. That was also a barrier.”

Julian sighed.

“Yeah. I’ve always been more of a lone wolf.”

“You’re a lone chihuahua.”

“Hey, chihuahuas can be really annoying.”

“So you admit it.”

“Ahhhh—you got me there! Good one,” Julian said. I rolled my eyes. He was really trying way too hard.

“You’re an idiot.”

“That, I’ll freely admit to.”

“Why are you still here?” I asked him.

“Because you’re still lying on your couch and not fighting me. I’ll go when you kick me out of this house yourself.”

“Damn, you don’t quit.”

“Have you ever known me to?”

“No.”

“There. The two of you went to college together also, right?”

I smiled. “Yeah. Our parents joked we were joined at the hip for life, we couldn’t even leave each other in college. I think they thought we were gonna get married someday.”

“Did you want to marry her?’

I looked at him. “Not really, Julian. She was my best friend. I wasn’t in love with her.”

“Just asking,” he said. “She got married a few years ago, didn’t she?”

“Yeah. The two of us met Mark in our first year of college. They hit it off right away. I remember she was a little nervous to tell me when they started dating, but she would suddenly be, like, super busy all the time and eventually I got it out of her. It was stupid; Mark’s a great guy. I’ve always thought that.”

“Is he that reporter for Channel 11?”

“Yeah.”

“Always liked him. He’s got a good screen presence.”

“You’ve got no fucking clue what you’re talking about, man.”

Julian grinned. “So you’re onto me.” I rolled my eyes.

“I remember when she told me they were engaged. It was about a year after we’d graduated. I was so happy for them. I’d, like, half-finished planning the wedding before she’d even finished her sentence.” I chuckled. “It was a beautiful wedding. She looked like a princess in her dress; I remember I told her that.”

Julian smiled.

“Did you know I was her bridesmaid?” I added, half-grinning.

“Heh. Of course you were. Ooh—please tell me she put you in a skimpy dress!”

I rolled my eyes. “No. I wore a suit. It was magenta, though.”

“Damn. Totally missed opportunity, right there.”

“That’s what her dad said.”

“Ha!”

“And then she had—Marcie—” Crap, I was going to cry again. “Shit, that kid is adorable.” I screwed my eyes shut. “It’s not fucking fair.”

“No. It’s not.”

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“I’m not going to fight you, Julian. I’m done being a hero.”

“But you are a hero, Cameron,” Julian said, and I looked at him. “It’s in your nature. I mean, I think I saw you getting a stray cat down from a tree one time. I think it bit you, too—hey, did you ever go to the doctor for that? You might need a rabies shot….”

“Shut up. I do not need a rabies shot.”

“I’m just saying,” Julian continued. “You couldn’t not be a hero if you tried. Could not—couldn’t—could not be not—whatever, you get what I’m saying. Damn double negatives, wow….”

“I can if I don’t leave my house or look at the news.”

Julian looked at me with what appeared, disturbingly, to be a pitying expression.

“That’s no way to live, Cameron. You can’t just hide forever. That was not a challenge,” he added when I opened my mouth to accept. I closed my mouth again. “It’s true there’s always going to be bad in the world,” Julian went on. “Bad people, bad things that happen to people…. Life isn’t fair. But,” he said, leaning forward and looking me right in the eye, “there's also always going to be good in the world. People helping old ladies cross the street. People working to make things better. Morons helping ugly stray cats down from trees, even when they get bitten….”

“So they don’t really need me, then,” I said, knowing full-well that was not his point. “There are plenty of other good people, so I can just stay on my sofa.”

Julian shook his head. “No, Cameron. Because it’s hard to be good in the face of bad. Not every good person can do it, not without encouragement. The world needs boneheads like you who don’t care what people think to show them they can be good. That they can stand up in the face of all the bad and unfairness in this world and say ‘not today, suckers!’ That’s why you can’t quit. Because if you give up when life knocks you down…then what hope does anyone else have?”

I pursed my lips and begrudgingly thought about what he was saying.

“I don’t know how to do it alone,” I whispered, avoiding his eyes.

“You won’t be alone,” he said. I looked at him. “You’d obviously be nothing without me as your villain.” He winked. I rolled my eyes, but I could feel my lips quirking into a sort-of smile.

“You’re dumb. You know that?”

“Yeah.”

“You know I can kick your butt, right?”

“I think I’m gonna need you to prove that, actually.”

“What if something happens?” I asked quietly after a moment. “What if I can’t save someone?”

“No one can save everyone. But you’re not going to save anyone if you don’t try.”

“I can’t believe you just ‘you-miss-one-hundred-percent-of-the-shots-you-don’t-take’-ed me.”

“What can I say? I’m derivative.”

I sat up and studied him for a moment.

“You get five seconds’ head-start,” I told him finally. He grinned.

“I thought you’d never say so!” he exclaimed, eyes gleaming, and finally got out of my house.

I stood up and counted down, stretching. I was kind of out of shape after being out for so long.

But I was still gonna kick Julian’s ass.