Yeah, this new facet of my power? Just as lousy as the rest of it had been.

“I am starting to think I’m never going to get better. Never heal, at any rate.”

“Well, it would help if you could stop being knocked down all the time. April has no formal training, and she’s still kicking your ass.”

“I am aware of how much I suck, thank you very much, Larabee,” Clayton muttered as he dragged himself back to his feet again. “How long was I out this time?”

“Long enough for me to make this.”

Clayton grimaced, wishing he could rid his mind of that image. “Catwoman. The key word there being woman. That suit… It’s the stuff that nightmares are made of, you know.”

“I made it for April.”

“Then why are you wearing it?”

“Ready to save the day yet?”

“Ha ha, very funny,” Clayton grumbled, tossing a ball up in the air. He caught it and smiled. “Do you know that’s the first time I managed that all day? What is with my complete lack of coordination? I’m starting to think that could only be a superhero—okay, yes, I know I’m just trying to learn to defend myself, but still—the only way I’ll get that is if I can somehow get a suit that does all the fighting for me.”

“How many times have you watched Iron Man today?”

“Not telling. And I passed out during at least one of them, so it doesn’t count. I had to watch it again.”

April sat down next to him, taking the ball. “Mind over matter here, Clay. You don’t lack coordination when it comes to anything else, so why this?”

“I was created to be a pacifist when I was engineered in that lab?”

“Cute, but if you can manage normal every day activities—walking, talking, eating, brushing your teeth—and just lose control when you’re acting in defense, then something is wrong in your head, not in your muscles.”

“What makes you say that?”

“We’ve never had any problems in the bedroom.”

Clay thought about that one for a second. “Okay, I see your point. Considering how I stressed myself into shifting when we were kissing when we first started dating, if there was something I was going to screw up, sex would be it, huh? On the other hand, that’s… well, fun.”

She laughed. “Yes, but that’s not what makes your basic day-to-day stuff work for you. You’ve convinced yourself you can’t do this, so you’re sabotaging yourself before you even get started.”

“Ah ha. We have it once again—I am my own worst enemy.”

“You are,” she agreed quietly. “But we’re going to fix that.”

The consensus was that it was a dumb idea. We all knew it. We all agreed on it.

But nothing in my life is ever easy.

“I am not supporting this idiotic scheme. I didn’t like the last one, and look where it got you, Clayton. It nearly got you killed! You almost died. I love you too much to let you do that again. You don’t have to prove anything with this hero crap. I don’t care how many times we’ve had this discussion, and I don’t care if you are a whiny loser if it means you don’t end up dead!” April shouted, pacing the kitchen in agitation. She was angry and scared, and Clayton couldn’t blame her for that. He didn’t like putting her in this position. He hated it, actually.

“April, please, I don’t have any illusions that I’m going to be wonderful and perfect and a true hero here. That’s not what this is about. It really isn’t. And no, Larabee, I don’t want a costume.”

Larabee looked up from the counter where he’d been busy drawing. “But… I had a perfect new one. Indestructible.”

April glared at him. “Not funny, Larabee.”

“Who said I was joking?” the scientist asked, hurt. He lifted up the doodle he’d made on his napkin, showing it to them. They didn’t really look, used to this routine by now. “See? I’ve got something just like this I can work with and—”

“No. No superhero costumes. No heroic antics, either,” April insisted. She shook her head, fiddling with the chain around her neck nervously. “This is not okay, Clayton. Larabee doesn’t like this idea any more than I do, and you know that’s never a good sign. You can’t trust the suit. We don’t know that anything he told you is true. You are not risking your life for this, okay?”

Clayton sighed. Admittedly, he didn’t really want to do this, either, but the more he thought about it, the more he thought he didn’t have another choice. “My life is already at risk, though it’s kind of funny we’re all saying that because I apparently can’t die—”

“You don’t know that for sure, and I really don’t want to find out,” April told him, and he saw tears in her eyes again. They wouldn’t fall, but he knew the idea of losing him scared her. That was why she was so angry now. “I’m sorry, but no.”

He took her hand, wrapping both of his around it and giving it a kiss. She almost pulled away from him. “Me, either, but the thing is, Kilbourne is still out there. The sadist is with him. As long as they’re out there, I’m not going to have a moment of peace. I am—they are going to come after me again sometime, right? Why not make it something where it’s on our terms? Why let them have the advantage? They don’t know I’m alive yet—if we can believe the suit, and we don’t believe the suit. But all the same, if they do come after me again, for whatever reason Kilbourne wants me for or created me for… You know I don’t want to be any part of that. I need to do something—and this time we’re going to have good equipment that works and backup we trust, and I’ll try and get defense classes again. Anything that I can do to keep myself as safe as possible, but I can’t hide forever. I have to go back out in public again sometime, and when that happens, they can and will come for me. They might already be watching us again. They could know even now. This isn’t over—won’t be over—until Kilbourne is in prison. We are the best people to make sure that happens. We’re all we’ve got.”

April sighed. “Damn, I hate when you actually have a logical argument.”

“Me, too,” Larabee added. “Because this plan sucks.”

Clayton gave them both a pleading look. They needed to understand why they needed to do this, and if they didn’t… He couldn’t really do it alone, but he might have to—or trust the suit. Clay would much rather rely on April and Larabee instead.

“I am very against the Clayton as bait idea,” April began slowly, but he could tell she was starting to warm up to the plan, “but we know they’re coming for him. That means… tracking devices. Real training in defense—and no one we’re paying off the street. We need someone else, someone better—”

“You,” Larabee interrupted her, and April frowned at him. “Come on. You really kicked some ass out there, and that is why you have to teach Clayton. You said we needed someone we could trust, and besides, he’s still too weak to leave here. You two can train while he recovers, and I’ll perfect what we need to make sure that he stays safe no matter what happens. Trackers and radios, and that’s just the beginning—”

“No spandex suits. For the last time, no.”

My second attempt to confront my boss went better than my first. Naturally, that was a relief, but considering how badly the first attempt went, it’s not like it that says much. I mean, the first time nearly got me killed.

It really wasn’t.

“Clayton?”

“Did I doze off again?”

“Yes.”

“Sorry,” he mumbled, looking over at the suit. “I’m not really saying that to you. To April, yes, but you? Not so much. I know it’s not your fault I got kidnapped, but I barely made it out of that, and it was April that saved me. Not any of your people. I want to know what’s going on now. This is way overdue. I should have been told years ago.”

“Did you really want to hear that you were Kilbourne’s experiment? That he manipulated your genetics and made you what you are?”

“Ooh, look, again with the Vader is my father thing. Yeah, I get it,” Clayton said, annoyed. He tried to stand up again and couldn’t. He sighed, figuring he’d probably fall asleep again soon enough. “He did unsanctioned experiments in his lab and came up with me. And then what? Did you people figure out what he was doing and stop him, or was it only after you had to trim the budget that you scrapped this project of his—and me with it?”

The suit sighed. “That is not how it works, Mr. Moore. Not how it went at all.”

“Exactly why are you calling me ‘Moore?’ I don’t have parents, therefore I don’t actually have that name. Who gave it to me? Social services? Something to file away after I was found on the street?”

“Your biological mother’s name was, in fact, Moore. She was the one to contribute the egg that was later fertilized to become you.”

“Yuck. April, I’m never eating eggs again.”

“That’s fine. I don’t think I could eat them again, either.”

The suit looked at them. Clayton yawned. It wasn’t that the conversation wasn’t important or even that it was boring. He just couldn’t stop yawning and wasn’t sure he’d be able to stay upright for much longer. “Technically, the designation was Moore, specimen C, which is what led to you being named Clayton when you were given over to social services.”

“Who did that? Your side? Or was he experimenting with that part of me, too?”

The suit shook his head. “Kilbourne would never have done that. When it was learned what he’d done—believe me, your abilities were not the intent of the original project that Kilbourne was allowed to do—even your… er, conception was not. He was not supposed to take any of the experiments to the level that he did.”

“So you shut him down and put the kid in the system?” April asked, giving a derisive snort. “Nice.”

“Well, you know, for being in the system, I got lucky—no, I didn’t. That was probably them watching me, wasn’t it? You arranged for my foster care, didn’t you? Did you know what I could do back then or were you just waiting for it to show up?”

The suit sighed. “We didn’t have all of Kilbourne’s notes, and when he was forced into hiding, he didn’t get his test subject, and we didn’t get our answers. We weren’t entirely sure what he’d hoped to achieve, and we had to keep an eye on you to make sure that you were not a danger—to yourself or the public.”

“Oh, yeah, I’m a definite public menace.”

“For all we knew, you’d been engineered as a walking plague. We had to take some precautions.”

Clayton glared at his boss—former boss—and shook his head. “And when it turned out that I could shift ages? Did you still think I needed to be monitored? Did you stop to think just once that I would have appreciated knowing what the hell was wrong with me?”

“Nothing is wrong with you, Clayton. You have a gift, regardless of how it happened or why,” April insisted, touching his shoulder. He put a hand over hers, but he still had a hard time seeing it that way, as a gift. It still felt like more of a curse, even with the whole you were created in a lab aspect.

“Your wife has a point. You have an ability to do things most people can’t, and what you went through in that warehouse would have killed a normal man.”

April squeezed Clayton’s hand, and he nodded slowly. He already knew that. Still, it was hard to take. “So what now?”

“We need to find Kilbourne and stop his organization. We need to know what he’s up to and why.”

“And you want me to help you?”

“You need the information, too.”

Clayton snorted. “You mean that I’m the perfect bait. What makes you really think he’ll come after me again? He’s seen what I can do. He wasn’t all that impressed.”

“He will be—when he realizes you’re not dead.”

I was being kind of optimistic about the next few days. While it might not have killed me, it definitely took a toll on me. Random shifts were back down to one a day, yeah, but they still knocked me out for the better part of the twenty minutes before I could shift back, and I started giving it at least an hour just because. I was sore all over and tired all the time.

She was a bit moody, too, but given what we’d all been through and my still sorry state, it wasn’t like anyone could really blame her.

“Clayton, what are you doing walking around? Go back to bed.”

“I’m sick of the bed. Especially since you’re not in it.”

“Oh, I hate to burst your little bubble there, but you are still not up to sex, so don’t even start,” she said, rolling her eyes as she tried to push him back to the bedroom. He caught the wall and turned to grab her around the waist. She’d get free soon enough. She was a lot stronger than him physically these days. And probably in all the other senses, too. April was just plain strong. “Clayton—”

“Can’t baby me forever. I need to be up and moving. I need to get better.”

“And maybe better means rest. Be patient.”

He sighed, leaning his head against her shoulder. “I am so sick of being sick. Okay, so I’m not sick. I nearly died. I know that. I just want to be able to be normal for a change. I want to feel like a human being for a while, not some discarded rag doll. Or gummy bear.”

She shuddered. “Please don’t go there. I was just getting to the point where I could eat them again.”

“Okay. No gummy bears. But I have to do something. I can’t sit still. Not like this. We’re going to have to talk to them or something. I need to know what I can really do, and if there’s a way to stabilize or reverse this, then maybe I should do that. I don’t need to be… like this, and I’m not helping anyone. At least if they could do that much, I could be a good, reliable husband for you. It’s funny how that seems so appealing now when I used to dream of being a superhero and saving the world. Now I know that I can’t—and the real gift is being normal.”

“There is no such thing as normal.”

“There’s living a life without a sick scientist claiming he’s my father because he created me in a lab; there’s life without random age shifts. There’s life without conspiracies. You’re a teacher. It’s a good life, a respectable, responsible one. You don’t have to do something other people consider great, but you are doing great things. Me? I had a job in a cubicle that I hated and wasn’t even qualified for, and I want something that isn’t… this. I don’t want to be the genetic freak anymore. I want to be free to have a real life, not a life between one random mishap to the next.”

She touched his face. “I love you, but you are a random mishap waiting to happen, Clayton. We can deal with conspiracies and random age shifts. We’ve been doing that for a while now. I don’t care what they have to say. You are you. You don’t have to change for anyone.”

He sighed. “I don’t know what to do, though. Something has to change.”

She nodded. “Yes. But not something as radical as rewriting all of your genetics. That’s not happening. We’ll find a way to make this work. All of it. It’s not finished yet.”

“I kind of wish it was.”

“There’s nothing easy about your life or my life or really anyone’s life, and that wouldn’t change if you didn’t have the ability to shift ages,” she insisted. “You just need a bit more time to recover. I know this time is hard and boring, but we’ll just make sure you survive it, and when you do, then we’ll go on to the next step.”

He nodded reluctantly. “I just wish I could… fix it all or make it go away. Wishing doesn’t change anything, doesn’t really do any good, and I know that. I thought something was really going to turn when I confronted my boss. It did, but not like I thought it would. Not like I expected. I’m still in way over my head, and I can’t see a way out of it.”

“Everyone dies at the end?”

“I hate it when you tell me that’s what happens at the end of movies.”

She grinned. “I know. But I wasn’t kidding that one time.”

“No, you weren’t, and that movie sucked,” Clayton agreed. He leaned against the wall. “Someone has to survive the end of this movie. Not that it should have made it past the first act. It’s a terrible movie. No one wants a whiny, pathetic hero who can’t stop talking about how horrible his life is, and even if he’s got an amazing, wonderful, kick ass romantic interest, no one buys that she’s really interested in him because he’s so annoying.”

April shrugged. “Fiction isn’t necessarily about what’s plausible, and if that’s a terrible movie, how do all of those remakes and sequels get made? At least this is somewhat original.”

“You mean this wasn’t done as a television show? Who’d have thought?”

“No, it wasn’t, because you are not a computer and I’m not a spy,” she disagreed. “Besides, the hero has to start kind of pathetic and annoying so that he can grow through the story.”

“I don’t think I’ve grown.”

“Maybe not. Kind of hard to tell with you, what with the age shifting and all,” she teased. He made a face. “You’re still pretty shaken up from almost dying; though, I can tell that much.”

“Yeah.”

“At this point, we just do what we’ve always done. We move on. We face whatever comes next.”

“And when we have no idea what that is?”

“Larabee makes a costume, and the world seems the same as always?”

Clayton laughed. “Larabee and spandex. Sad when that is a sign that things are right with the universe.”

“It could be worse.”

“Yeah, let’s not think about that, okay? Better for everyone if we don’t.”

Apparently, I can come back from the dead.

And, according to April and Larabee, what I looked like—regardless of the age I happened to be at the time, I was like death warmed over.

“We’re really sure I’m not dead?” Clayton asked, trying to sit up and failing, again. He was sore everywhere, and he didn’t really want to move, but he kept trying just to see if he could. He had never been so helpless in his life than he had been in that warehouse, and he couldn’t let that happen again. He didn’t know how he was going to stop it, but he would have to do better next time.

He really didn’t want there to be a next time.

“Can you please stop asking that?” April sighed. “If you don’t, I’m going to smack you, and after what you’ve been through, you can’t—I don’t want to hurt you again.”

“I’m apparently immune to that to a degree.”

“Just because you’re—”

“He broke all the bones in my arm, April. I know he did. I felt it. And yet…” Clayton lifted his hand and wiggled his fingers, waving at her. “I… healed. I’m not sure how that works, but I’m… hard to kill.”

“And I am damn glad you are,” she said, putting her hands on his face and kissing his forehead. “You’re not allowed to die on me.”

He sighed. “What if I don’t die, but you do? I’m not looking forward to a lifetime of random shifts and improbable healing when I’d end up alone. I don’t know how many times I have to say this, but I’m really nothing without you.”

“You are a lot more than you think, and we are going to make you see that somehow. You don’t have to be a superhero, Clayton. You don’t have to have a superpower. You can be you, and that is enough for me. Of course, you need to work on your outlook and self-confidence still, but I just want you. And our not-normal and very complicated but very us life together. Speaking of, there is something that I should probably tell you—”

“I saw the superhero costume he made you.”

She groaned. “That’s not it. It’s not about superheroes or costumes or anything like that.”

“It might have to wait,” Clayton admitted with a yawn. “I think I’m going to pass out again. You are the best thing I’ve ever seen, and I can’t keep my eyes open to look at you.”

“You could almost pass for a romantic.”

He laughed, but he really couldn’t fight the pull into unconsciousness any longer.

“When was the last time you slept?”

“I’m fine, Clayton.”

He combed his fingers through her hair. “You’re afraid if you go to sleep I’ll be dead, aren’t you?”

She sighed, curling up against him. “Or that they’ll come back and try to finish what they started. You gave us both a really good scare. I thought… I really did think I’d lost you there, and you’re still so weak… If they come back now, we don’t hardly stand a chance, do we?”

“You never know. Larabee really liked my idea of turning spandex into a weapon.”

She giggled. “You and spandex. Him and spandex… It’s so wrong it’s funny.”

“Yeah, that’s the story of my life.”

“Excuse me?”

“Everything but you, of course. You’re the one thing that’s right.”

She rolled her eyes as she sat up again. “I know right now you’re not up to it because even though you’re back to one random shift a day, you’re exhausted and can’t hardly move, but we are not letting this happen again. I think what you did—standing up to them and not giving in—was amazing, and I love that you did it, but standing up to them like that doesn’t do you any good if you can’t do it without nearly dying in the process. We know your body can take a lot of punishment, but it shouldn’t have to.”

He nodded. “I think we have to find out what Kilbourne was trying to do when he created me and what the rest of them know and maybe then I can figure out why I’m—I can’t afford not to be able to defend myself. And—Larabee has got to get better at his tech gadgetry. I don’t see why the stuff he invented for his game nights works fine but the important stuff fails.”

“Because he had fun making it?”

“Probably.”

“I love you.”

She smiled at him. “I love you, too. And as soon as we get you on your feet again, we are going to change things.”

“Not all of them, though, right? I still get my gummy bears and you and I’ll still hate spandex, right?”

She rolled her eyes. “Clayton—”

“I didn’t say it before, but thank you. Thank you for finding me. I know you get annoyed when I say I’d be lost without you, but you know it’s true this time. I almost died.”

She closed her eyes for a moment. “It won’t happen again.”

“You won’t rescue me?”

“No, I mean you won’t be in that situation again. Never again.”

“You know what they say about saying never—”

“Never say it. Yeah. And our life is highly chaotic and improbable, but this is a situation where never needs to be said, if only that we vow not to let the part of it that we can control happen again. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” he said, wrapping an arm around her. “Now go to sleep. We have a lot of work to do when we get up again.”

I have to say, those hours in my lab, waiting for Clayton to come around or at least stop shifting, hoping he wouldn’t die, were some of the longest in my life. It was so hard, watching him like that. He was my best friend. He was supposed to do great things. Amazing things.

I didn’t really expect his opinion of spandex to change if he came out of this alive, but still, I wanted him to have that chance to be a hero, to be so much more than I could ever hope to be. Besides, if he didn’t wake up, I was pretty sure that April was going to kill me, despite refusing to tear up my favorite costume.

“April, I’m not sure that we can wait any longer. I’ve tried looking for the files on the experiment, on Kilbourne, but they seem to have wiped almost everything about him out of existence. I only know what I know because I was there when he was still being talked about. And this isn’t good. We don’t know what we need to help him. Maybe they might.”

“They almost got him killed,” she said coldly, running her finger’s through Clayton’s currently white hair and looking dangerous again. “No, Larabee. I don’t trust any of them. I’m not asking them for help.”

“But it could mean the difference between life and death for Clayton, and you know you can’t ignore that.”

“Can’t I?” she countered. “I don’t have to be reasonable right now. Clayton is my husband, and they almost killed him. They let his life be one long experiment—and don’t say that’s not what it was. It was one. They might not have done what Kilbourne set out to do, but they let him have this so-called normal life all the while watching and manipulating things, and that is not what they should have done. Even if they didn’t want to tell him when he was a kid, when he was twenty and knew what he could do and was working for him, they should have told him! Instead, they let him wander through his life thinking he was half-insane or a genetic freak. They didn’t even give him the decency of a real income or a trust fund when they know he couldn’t realistically hold down a different job with his random shifts. They used you. They used me. That is unacceptable.”

“I know you’re angry,” Larabee agreed. He didn’t want to argue with her. She had valid points. It was just that she was being a little irrational with Clayton’s life here. “I just want to make sure he lives before we make people pay, okay?”

She sighed, moving back as Clayton shifted again, this time into a child of about ten. She grimaced and brought him back into her arms again. “It has slowed down, though, Larabee. He’s not shifting as much.”

“That’s not necessarily a good sign.”

She closed her eyes for a moment. “A little while longer. Maybe… Tomorrow. If the shifts haven’t stopped and he’s still unconscious, then you can contact them. Not before.”

“Maybe you should get some rest, too,” Larabee suggested, and she nodded absently. She had no intention of doing it. She’d be right there next to Clayton no matter what happened. Larabee turned and walked away, going back to his costumes. He didn’t know how else to keep his mind off of what wasn’t happening. Clayton needed to wake up already. It felt like it was taking way too long, and Larabee was worried that it wasn’t going to happen at all.

He picked up his scissors and started cutting the fabric. He knew exactly what April’s costume needed to be.

“Here. You should eat, even if you’re not going to sleep.”

April nodded wearily, taking the bowl of soup from Larabee and sipping from it instead of attempting to use the spoon. He looked at Clayton. They’d tried giving him water earlier—he’d spit it up all over when he shifted, so they’d quietly agreed not to give him anything else until the shifts were all over.

“How long has it been?”

“Almost an hour since the last one,” April said with a slight smile. “I think they’re about over.”

“I just hope that’s a good thing.”

“Don’t make me throw this soup at you,” she warned, leaning down to kiss Clayton’s forehead. He looked like his usual self at the moment, but that might not last. “I think the worst is over.”

“I hope so.”

She finished drinking the soup and set the bowl to the side. “I didn’t see it at first.”

“What?”

“How special he is.”

“Not even he sees that.”

“He needs to live so he can see that, so that he can do so much more. It’s not all about this thing he can do, but even with it—he could do so much more than he realizes,” she said, reaching for Clayton’s hand and wrapping her fingers in his. “And he can have a bit of a normal life. With me.”

“The super spy type lady he got lucky and found,” Larabee agreed, and April shot him a dirty look. He turned and picked up the costume. “Well? What do you think?”

“A mini-skirt? Really?”

Larabee shrugged. “You have nice legs. Clayton says they’re distracting. You should use that to your advantage.”

“Larabee, never say anything like that to me again or I will have to—Clayton?”

Larabee set the costume aside, bending down so that he was eye level with Clayton, trying to see if his eyes had, in fact, tried to open. “Spandex?”

“Get away from me, Larabee.”

“Damn, it’s good to hear your voice.”

“Not so good,” Clayton groaned, rolling over. “I have to puke.”

And then he did, right on Larabee’s shoes.

Living with Clayton meant I saw some weird things. Whether it was one of his shifts or Larabee’s spandex outfits or giant gummy bears, I was really getting used to the fact that my whole life had become… weird.

Teaching was actually the normal part of my day, and that said something, really.

What I saw when I found my husband in that building was still hard for me to take, though.

April winced as she watched Clayton’s body convulse again. “Larabee?”

“Still here, April. What is it? Clayton?”

“Yeah. I need your help getting Clayton back to the car. The way is clear, and the fighting’s over in the other side of the building. As is the posturing. I heard that doctor rambling on about something. I didn’t care enough to listen. Maybe I should have, but I just wanted to get to Clayton, so…”

“Are you sure about this?”

“Yes, damn it. I already got him part of the way out, but I can’t do this on my own. It’s fine when he’s smaller. I can actually manage him as a kid, but I can’t carry a full grown man, not when he’s unconscious. Come on, Larabee. Suck it up and get your friend out of here.”

“I’m coming,” he told her, and April looked down at Clayton again, wincing. “Is it wrong of me to want you to switch back to a kid again? Just for a bit? I want to get you closer to the door.”

He didn’t answer, and she sighed, touching his forehead and then his hair. He couldn’t do this to her. He was not allowed to die.

Though, to be perfectly honest, she didn’t know if that was what he was doing right now. She knew it wasn’t good, but he was still breathing after each shift, at least. That was something. She’d take even the little things at this point. It should not be like this. Clayton was… harmless. He never hurt anyone, just wanted to be normal, and maybe he was a bit of a dreamer and even a whiner at times, but he did not deserve this.

“Wow. Who took that guy out? One of the other agents?”

“Larabee, focus. Over here. Help me with Clayton.”

“Wait—was that you? Did you really kick that big guy’s ass like that? I mean, that is amazing. Clayton wasn’t kidding. You are a superhero.”

“Larabee! Over here! Now! Focus!”

“Did you really do that to him?” Larabee asked as he started to lift Clayton up, and April looked at him in annoyance.

“What does it matter? It’s Clayton we have to worry about. We have to get him out of here and figure out what to do. I don’t know that we can take him to a hospital, and he’s—I don’t know, Larabee. Just help me get him out of here.”

The scientist nodded, and they half-carried, half-dragged Clayton between them until they got back to the car. Larabee helped her get Clayton in the back seat, and she sat down with him. Larabee got behind the wheel. “Crap. Did he just shift? Again?”

She nodded. “He’s been doing it a lot. It scares me, honestly. He said if he did it sooner than twenty minutes then it hurt and he was unconscious for a day. He’s done it at least five times since I found him.”

Larabee winced. “We may need to use my stabilizer for him.”

“Yeah, but—I don’t know. Clayton also said that he thought maybe the random shifts were his body’s way of ‘adjusting’ itself, fixing itself in some way. What if that’s what it’s doing?”

“Neither option is really that good—and you’re right. We can’t take him to a hospital like this. To the lab, then, I guess.”

“Here,” Larabee said, holding something out to April. “Rip it up. Tear it to pieces. It should help.”

She frowned. “Larabee, this is your favorite. It’s Magenta Man, and you wouldn’t—I can’t. I know I’ve been angry and I said things, but I can’t rip this up. Not only do I not think that’s possible after the ooze that you soaked it in to make it work with Clayton’s ability to shift ages, but… it’s your favorite.”

He nodded. “I know it is, but… My tech stuff was what failed, and Clayton never should have been in their hands for that long. It’s my fault, April.”

“Then you can make it up to him, but I can’t rip that,” she said, moving around again to try and get comfortable. She would really, really like it if Clayton would wake up—but if he was right about the shifts and unconsciousness… He’d be out for at least a week at this rate. “Why would anyone do this?”

“I don’t know,” Larabee admitted, setting his costume aside. “I can see so much potential in what they did, I guess. There’s a lot we can learn from Clayton and his ability, but this? This was just needless cruelty. They hurt him… because they could.”

“Almost makes me wish I’d killed that one back there,” she whispered, shaking her head. “Someone has to pay for this. Something has to be done. And I want real answers, too.”

“We’ll get them, April. I promise,” Larabee agreed. “Did you want to try using the stabilizer? It could—”

“As much as I want to wake him up and know he’s okay, I—I am going to trust that this is what he has to do to survive. Remember, he’s different. He’s going to need to let his body process what they did to him in ways that we can’t. He could shift and make some of the injuries go away, and maybe that’s what this is, as scary as it seems.”

“Those were bruises, not broken bones.”

“Larabee, I will rip your costume if you don’t stop. I need to think positive right now, and you need to do it, too, damn it.”

“Okay, okay,” Larabee agreed. “Hey, April, can I make you a superhero costume now?”

I know what you’re thinking.

Either way, I claim technical difficulties.

Of course, Clayton and April would tell you that’s what I always say.

“April?”

“Don’t touch me, Larabee, I’m not in the mood.”

He nodded, knowing better than to try and change her mind. It wouldn’t work, not right now. They’d refused to let either of them into the building where Clayton was being held, and even though the radio still seemed to be working, they hadn’t heard anything from him in a long time. Nothing was going to make April feel better, not until she got Clayton back alive—or killed everyone in some psychotic rage that no one would have thought her capable of until then. She’d just snap, right like that, and boom! She’d take them all down and leave nothing but bodies in her wake.

Kind of awesome.

Definitely scary.

Come to think of it, the look on her face was rather scary at the moment. Larabee watched her reach into the car for the tracking device, and he frowned just before she smacked the nearest guard on the head. “Uh, April—”

“Not a word, Larabee,” she ordered, moving from their car to the fence. He followed after her, not wanting to stay and knowing that he had to try and keep her from getting herself hurt. She meant everything to Clayton, and Larabee knew that he wouldn’t want her getting hurt for his sake, no matter how bad off he was right now—and, admittedly, it sounded bad.

Really, really bad.

Burying someone with gummy bears bad. Larabee wished that he had one of his costumes right now. It would make him feel a lot better. More confident. He could do this. He really could. He believe that. He did.

Only he didn’t.

Clayton was in there, so Larabee had to suck it up and try. He looked at April. “Should I be calling you Ninety-Nine right now?”

She gave him a dark look and ran from the fence to the window, trying to look inside. She really had missed her calling as a teacher. She should have been a spy. That would have been awesome. “Hey, April, I don’t suppose you ever thought maybe you’d—I don’t know. Maybe you should have let one of the sides recruit you, maybe. Then you’d be a super spy. Unless you already were.”

“What? Clayton could only have someone love him if that someone was assigned to spy on him?” April demanded, picking up a brick and throwing it at the window, breaking the glass. She knocked the loose pieces out of the way and jumped inside.

“Hey! I can’t follow you! I won’t fit in there!”

“Technical difficulties again, Larabee?” she called back to him, and he tried to follow her progress from the window, but he lost sight of her quickly as she ducked behind some of the warehouse’s equipment and supplies. He didn’t know what this place was, but it sure looked creepy.

Larabee sighed, turning away from the window in frustration. There had to be something that he could do. Anything. He knew there would be—the radio. April had left her end back at the car when she couldn’t raise Clayton. Perfect. Larabee could use it. Even if Clayton didn’t hear him, maybe she would when she got to him.

Rushing back, Larabee picked up the radio and put the mic to his lips. “Clayton? April? Anyone here me? It’s Larabee.”

Silence.

“Come on, buddy. Clayton, what if I told you I had some spandex for you and I’ll put it on you while you’re helpless and unconscious? What then?”

“Larabee,” April’s voice sounded exasperated. “No threatening him with spandex.”

Larabee let out a breath in relief. “So… You found him?”

“Yeah.”

That didn’t sound good. “It’s bad, isn’t it? How bad? Really bad?”

“Well, it’s Clayton.”

Damn. That meant that it was really bad.

People will surprise you. Or maybe it’s that situations will force people to do things that you don’t expect or that they don’t think they’re capable of, and that’s what surprises everyone. Clayton, of course, was always talking about how he wasn’t a hero. He wasn’t superhero. He couldn’t seem to get over that concept.

I still loved him, though. I married him for a reason.

“Larabee, I’m going to kill you.”

“I know you’re worried, April, but this really isn’t helping,” Larabee muttered, smacking his fist against the hand-held unit for the tracking device again. Typical of Larabee’s inventions, it didn’t work. Right now, she was kicking herself for listening to him at all. She’d had a bad feeling about Clayton doing this, and she’d known better than to let him do it. She’d been glad that he’d stepped up, wanted to take charge and do something proactive again, but she had known better.

It wasn’t that Clayton was helpless. Maybe hapless, though she didn’t believe much in luck, didn’t think he was cursed by fate or anything like that.

He was accident prone, though.

“If something has happened to Clayton, I really will kill you. First, I’ll rip apart all of your costumes in front of you, and when they’re lying in shreds, I will finally give you the mercy of a slow death.”

“You’re scaring me right now.”

“Good! Damn it, get that thing working already,” she snapped angrily. She looked over at Clayton’s boss again. “You owe us answers. What is going on here? Who are they? Why did they take Clayton? Is this really about researching some kind of fountain of youth, or is there more to it? What part do you play in any of it?”

“Mrs. Moore—”

“Don’t even try and placate me,” April warned. “I’m not in the mood. Clayton is a good man, and he didn’t deserve any of this. And if you people knew what was going on with him, you had no right to keep that from him. Do you have any idea what he has been through since he discovered what he could do? Do you know what that’s like? Of course not. You probably don’t even care.”

Larabee touched her shoulder. “We’re going to need their help. Try not to get too worked up.”

“I am beyond worked up, Larabee. We’re talking about Clayton here. My husband. Your best friend. And we still don’t know if they had anything to do with the accident that killed my parents. I am not going to lose Clayton, is that clear? I don’t care what they think. I want him back, and I want answers. We’ve all waited long enough for that.”

“You didn’t have clearance—”

“Clearance? That is unbelievable. Clearance. That’s—that is bullshit, and you know it. I don’t care what the project was or who thought it up. It was—it is Clayton’s life. You can’t put clearance on his life and tell me that he didn’t deserve to know. Absolutely not.”

“You know, Clayton’s right. You’re incredible when you’re angry.”

April narrowed her eyes at Larabee, taking the device from him and smacking him in the head with it. It started beeping again. “Unbelievable.”

“Wow. They must have really sped off to get there,” Larabee said, shaking his head.

“And yet no one tracked them with all the traffic cameras and local authorities or anything like that? I hate you people. You’re all idiots. I’m going to find my husband without you.”

“That wouldn’t be wise.”

“Why not? Like you people can do better.”

“Give me a bit, April. I think I can fix the radio, too.”

“We are leaving. Now. They’ve already had Clayton for way too long. He could be hurt. He could be… He is in trouble, and we are going to help him.”

“We’re getting close.”

April looked over at the suit, a nice dark go to hell look, and turned her attention back to the road. Larabee tapped her on her shoulder. “I think I got it.”

“What, the tracking device that stops working every two minutes or—”

“It’s been stable for the last half-hour, April, and I was going to say that I think I fixed the radio. Here. It’s kind of bad reception, but since we’re getting closer, it should get better. And he should hear your voice. It’s what he wanted last time.”

She took the radio from Larabee and held it up to her ear, wincing at the static and feedback. It cleared a bit, and she let out a breath when she heard Clayton’s voice. It wasn’t as reassuring as she’d hoped, though. He sounded terrible.

“…Have to tell April I love her. And tell Larabee he was the best friend I ever had. And then I guess if you have to, you can do whatever you’re going to do—I can’t stop you—but do that, at least. I want them to know that much.”

She grabbed the mic, not liking what she was hearing. “I swear, Clayton, if you give up now, I’ll hurt you myself.”

It almost sounded like he’d tried to laugh. He did not sound good. He was scaring her. “Not sure it’s about giving up, April. I was kind of brave for a while, though. Was nice. I did good. Was almost a hero for once.”

“Clayton, don’t do this,” she heard herself beg, and she knew she couldn’t afford to lose it now. She could do this. She could stay strong again. She was Ninety-Nine. She was his hero—heroine—and she would be that for him again. “Listen to me. Stay with me.”

“Love you. Hey, if you find my body, can you bury me with some gummy bears? Let the worms eat them instead.”

She felt the tears on her cheeks. “Damn it, Clay. Do not give up.”

He didn’t answer. There was only silence on the other end of the radio.

Right. So… yes, I got captured.

You’re wondering how I got out of it. Well… Um… About that…

Clayton was in trouble. Again. As usual.

He was always in trouble. He wasn’t a superhero. He wasn’t a hero. He was a spectacular failure, as usual. He hadn’t even lasted ten minutes before he got captured. Granted, it wasn’t from where they’d thought it would be—the suit hadn’t done this, had even maybe tried to save Clay a little—but it hadn’t worked. He’d been taken. He was pathetic.

He looked down at his suit. Was the tracking device not working? It felt like it had been a long time since the van thing, though he knew from all those times when he had to wait twenty minutes to shift back that time could seem a lot faster than it really was. Still, he would have hoped that he’d be rescued by now. He thought with the tracking device and everything, no big deal.

Only… the former security guard now head sadist of the conspiracy was a big deal.

A big, ugly mean deal.

Clayton hadn’t found a way out, had not found anything that could help him. He was stuck. Trapped. Locked in a room. A dark room. It would be nicer if he was alone, but he wasn’t. He tried being quiet. He tried making noise. It didn’t matter.

The problem wasn’t really being trapped. It was the man who had trapped him. The guard. No, the sadist. Clayton had quickly decided that fit him a lot better. That was what the man really was. He was a guard probably because he was some kind of failed cop or other type of person, someone who’d gone into it looking for power—a glorified bully, and Clay had known plenty of them in school. He knew that he couldn’t really compete with them. He was a wimp.

A wimp in a lot of pain.

“What are you going to do? Turn me over to that guy for his experiments?”

The sadist laughed. “You really aren’t that smart, are you?”

“I figure I’m still smarter than you. Most bullies aren’t smart. It’s just a power trip to you. And it doesn’t make you any better. It’s just a—Ow! Damn it, let go of me! Let—ow,” Clay moaned, trying to get his arm free from the man’s hold. That hurt, and he was pretty sure that some more of his bones were broken. All those little bones in his hand, in his fingers, he was sure they were all broken. Some in his arm. Some in his foot.

Yes, the sadist was quick, but something had to have gone wrong with the tracking device because Clay should not be here. Not anymore. Rescue should have come by now. It should have. It didn’t make any sense that it hadn’t. He should have been free and not in pain and not hurting and why hadn’t he waited until Larabee actually managed to make some kind of device that worked before he did this?

Oh, yeah. He’d somehow thought that he’d be okay talking to his boss. And he had been. The suit wasn’t the problem. He’d been fine. He’d been nice. Might even have gotten to the point of being helpful.

“This is the experiment, Freak.”

Clayton lowered his head. Why couldn’t he have gotten a useful power? What good was switching ages right now?

“Why don’t you turn yourself into a kid, huh?”

Clay glared at him. “What, you can’t stand taking on someone who’s almost your size? You are such a cliché, you know.”

The man grabbed Clay by the collar, cutting off his air. “Switch. Now.”

“No,” Clay managed to say, thinking this was a bad time for a speech, but he was going to make it anyway. “Maybe you’ll get lucky, and I’ll have a random one, but I sure as hell won’t do it for you. Or for anyone who might be watching. I already hurt, and you wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve thought that dying would be a blessing. Just about curled up and did it several times since I figured out what I could do, so that… it doesn’t scare me.”

“You’ve got a lot of brave words, but that’s all they are, you know.”

“Maybe,” Clayton agreed, because he was a coward, and he knew it. He’d give anything to get back to April right now. He would love to be a normal person and not a genetic freak. This was, however, what he was and who he was and this was his life. If the only thing he managed to do here was stand up for himself, just this once, that was something, wasn’t it? It was more than he usually did. “You won’t get me to change. I don’t think you really care about that, but if that’s what you’re supposed to be doing, you may as well stop now.”

“Oh, we’re not done. You know that you have a lot more bones that I can break, and I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time.”

“You should have worn spandex. Then this really would have been a nightmare.”