The Other Eight by Joseph R. Lallo Read Free Book Online Page B

“No…
no… ugh, what was I thinking? No… tsk . I guess we’ll go with
Nonsensica. Madame Nonsensica maybe? No. No, just plain Nonsensica.
At least that way I don’t have to come up with a new name for the
non-chucks.”
    “Okay, Nonsensica. You’ve written under
special abilities ‘Distraction.’ What exactly do you mean by
that?”
    She leaned toward him. “Get this. I’ve got
the ability to cause mental misfires.”
    “Could you elaborate?”
    “I can do better than that. I can show
you.”
    The guards at the door put their hands to
their pistols, and Dr. Aiken dramatically waved his hands. “No, no,
no! The sign!”
    She turned to a large placard on the far wall
that read: Any demonstration of powers on interview personnel
without their specific request and permission is grounds for
immediate disqualification.
    “Oh,” she said in disappointment. She leaned
back and crossed her arms, then her legs. Thanks to her outfit, the
motion produced a sound like a party clown furiously constructing a
pair of balloon animals. “Let’s see. How do I explain it? You know
how sometimes someone says something so bizarre that you have to
sort of shake your head and blink for a second?”
    “Yes.”
    “I can do that on demand with a one hundred
percent success rate.”
    “How do you achieve this effect?”
    “I say two words in rapid succession that are
so completely, so fundamentally, so drastically and conceptually
different that the act of attempting to comprehend them causes a
momentary mental overload.” She leaned back with a satisfied
nod.
    “Interesting,” Dr Aiken commented, scrawling
three question marks on the line. “Under other abilities, you’ve
just written ‘ass kicking.’”
    “That’s right.”
    “Care to expand on that?”
    “Jeet Kune Do. Seven years.”
    “Ah. And under origin you’ve written
‘None.’”
    “That’s right. I was born this way,
baby.”
    “You’ve always had your powers?”
    “As long as I can remember.”
    “And have you always wanted to be a
hero?”
    “I’ve always been a hero. Until now it
just wasn’t likely to pay the bills… You guys are planning
to pay us, right?”
    “I believe there is a salary, yes.”
    “Then I’m your girl.”
    “Fascinating… So far you are the only
applicant who hasn’t pinpointed a single event in his or her past
as the launching point for their hero career.”
    “Always was, always will be.”
    “Not to offend you, but I would have thought
if there was someone with your… uniform running the streets and
fighting crime, I would have heard about it by now.”
    “Well, I haven’t fought any crime, you know,
formally.”
    “So how exactly have you been a hero all of
your life?”
    “Because I am, okay? A poet is a poet even
before she puts her pen to the paper. If you’re meant to be
something, really meant to be, then it’s all there waiting for you
to let it out.”
    Dr. Aiken nodded and made some more notes.
“Now this power of yours, does it have any peculiar limits? Can you
do it to more than one person at a time for instance?”
    “No. Just one. I mean, I think I did it to a
group once, but it was pretty weak and I’m not sure how I did it,
so we’ll say just one. But one’s all I need, because then these come into play.” She threw three punches with
considerable speed. “And then this!” She thrust a foot upward. “And
then that’s it, boom. Another evildoer vanquished.”
    Aiken wrote ‘extreme confidence,
compensation?’ in the application’s margin.
    “And you say that you can achieve this effect
with just words?”
    “Yep. It really is much easier to understand
if you let me show you.”
    “I really don’t think that’s—”
    “Is it safe?” Summers asked.
    “Oh yeah. Perfectly safe. I do it to folks
all the time, and they’re fine after.”
    “You can demonstrate on me then.”
    Aiken gave her a concerned look.
    “I think it would help with the evaluation…
and I’m a