A Normil Day

Armand Cole

From the point of view of an average observer, this is what happened.

At about the same moment that SPEAR operative Myra Levin successfully disabled Adam Stitch, a bland-looking bystander reportedly muttered, "Enough. Time for Plan B." And then he shot Rick Normil in the back with a strangetech ray.

If the man hadn't collapsed instantly, profoundly unconscious, he would have died. As it was, there must have been upwards of a dozen guns pointed at him, ready to perforate him if he twitched. Jenna Germaine, meanwhile, had rushed to Rick's side; he had fallen to his knees, holding his head. She said, "Are you all right, can you tell how many fingers I'm holding up?"

"Two," Rick said. "I'm all right. I just got dizzy for a moment."

He sounded—as Jenna said later—wrong. Rick's African-American accent comes through mainly in his intonation, and his tone at that moment was weirdly flat—but at the same time, he sounded more Southern than usual. As Rick was born in North Carolina, Jenna suspected some sort of shock effect rather than twigging immediately to what had actually happened. "That man," she said, "hit you with some sort of energy beam. You need to go to the hospital—"

"I said," Rick snapped, "I'm fine." And then, apparently realizing that he wasn't going to make his case that way, he added, "Thanks for worrying, though, Miss Germaine. Man, I'm glad I have friends like you."

"Uh huh. Right. You're going—"

At this point, Rick walked away from her, over to the policemen who were dealing with the strangetech. It's worth noting that by this time, Adam Stitch had been successfully netted and was only semiconscious; his weakness had always been electricity. (All Extraordinaries have a weak point. This has nothing to do with the laws of physics and everything to do with the powerful, subtle rules that have been laid on top of physics, like painting over an old canvas. The world is not supposed to look like this. Adam Stitch is not supposed to be real.)

It's also worth noting that if a distinctly non-average observer had been around—me, for example—I would have noticed a ghost of Rick Normil, somewhat behind the "real" one, rubbing his head and sitting up.

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Author's Note: And the second part for today.  I've decided that I'm going to put up two chapters at a time when one of them is very short, like this one is.  Next week is only going to be a single chapter.

I hope the mystery surrounding Armand is at least somewhat intriguing.  I haven't given you much in the way of real clues, but I'd be interested to hear what you think his deal is—not that I'm going to answer any questions, of course.  At any rate, be sure to vote if you liked it!