Not Today

Nathan Tate was about to offer to buy a round when his phone buzzed. He could never ignore it; not now. Not now he'd given his number to the emergency services, so that they could call the superhero, Power Blaster, to let him know if he was needed. The display on screen showed the call was coming from ‘Mother’.

Nathan knew it wasn't actually his mother, but an emergency call. If his mother called, the display would say, ‘Mum’.

'I have to take this,' he said, and moved away from the group.

The person on the other end told him that a person was trapped under a train at Eastville Station – could he help? Time was of the essence and there was no easy way to get lifting gear down there.

'I'm on my way,' he said. Turning to his friends, he said, 'Sorry, guys, I gotta go. My mum has had one of her turns.'

'Want me to drive you home?' one of them asked. 'Be quicker than the Arrow.'

'No, thanks, mate, I'll catch a cab. I don't want to spoil anyone else's evening.'

As they watched him go, another member of the group commented, 'Is his mother really that ill or is he just trying to get out of buying a round? It happens a lot lately.'

Nathan's especially acute hearing picked that up; but he pretended he hadn't heard. He resolved that next time he met this particular group of friends, he'd make sure he got the first round in.

Ambulances, fire crews and compliance agents surrounded the entrance to Eastville station, preventing people from entering. Power Blaster landed, making sure his back was to the crowd gathered outside. Sure enough, he could see cameras flash as people managed to get shots of the back of his head. The compliance agents let him through. He ran through the concourse and vaulted over the ticket barrier.

On the platform, he could see immediately what had happened. The head and torso of a young woman could be seen by the side of the track; the wheels of the train had run over her pelvis. His head spun a little. She had to be dead, surely. Nobody could survive that, could they?

He took a deep breath and floated down so he could assess how best to move the train. As he landed, the woman's eyes opened. 'Power Blaster?' she whispered. She was not only alive, but conscious. He knelt beside her. 'I slipped,' she said.

'I'll get you out,' Power Blaster said. 'Hang in there.' He stood, making an assessment of the best place to brace himself against the engine.

'Wait a second, Power Blaster.' A paramedic, who'd been kneeling by the girl, called to him. 'Can I have a word before you do anything?'

'Sure,' Power Blaster said, and followed the man a few metres into the tunnel. The girl under the train watched them with terrified eyes.

'There's something you need to know before you lift that train off her,' the paramedic said in a low voice. 'There's severe crush trauma there. It's only the train stopping her from bleeding to death, and while we could, in many cases, apply a tourniquet, the way she's fallen and the extent of her injuries make it impossible. Not only that, but even if we could do it, the crushed parts of her body will release toxins which will kill her anyway. So even though she's conscious and lucid, the minute we move that train, she dies.'

'So by saving her, I'll actually be killing her?'

'Effectively, although it will be deemed an accidental death.'

'How long could she live with the train on her?'

'A few hours at best. Though the Arrow Train Company want things cleared up as soon as possible so they can get the trains running again.'

'Heartless pricks,' Power Blaster muttered. 'There must be something you can do.'

'I'm sorry, Power Blaster, but there isn't. I've had a couple of doctors down here to make their own assessments, and they agree with me. Even if, by some miracle, she did live, her injuries would be so life changing, her life would be a living hell. She'd never walk again, and that would be the least of her problems, believe me. The best we can do is sedate her before you start, so she won't know what's happening. It's the only humane thing to do.'

'Let me talk to her, first,' Power Blaster said, and went back to kneel beside the girl.

'I'll never walk again, will I?' she whispered.

'I don't know,' Power Blaster hedged. 'I'm not a doctor.'

'I might even die. I don't want to die. I've never even kissed a man.'

'Well, I can soon rectify that,' Power Blaster said. He leaned over and kissed her gently on the lips. 'There. You can tell all your friends when you see them that you kissed Power Blaster.' Power Blaster had never been able to make up his mind whether there was anything after death or not; but if there was, she'd see her friends again eventually.

'Am I going to die?' she asked, in a small voice.

'We're all going to die,' Power Blaster said. From where he knelt, he could see the station clock, showing a minute to midnight. 'I can promise you, though, you're not going to die today.' All he had to do was keep talking to her for another minute and what he'd said would be perfectly true.

'What's your name?' he asked. 'I like to know the names of the women I've kissed.'

'Karen,' she replied.

'I'm Nathan,' he said. It was the first time he’d ever told anyone at an emergency scene his real name, and the last, until many years later, when he would appear on TV and tell everyone.

'What did the doctor say to you just now?' she asked.

'He said... he said that lifting the train off you might hurt, so he'd need to give you a sedative before I move it.'

The Paramedic came over. 'We need to do this, Power Blaster,' he said.

The station clock clicked over to midnight as the paramedic injected something into Karen's arm. Power Blaster stayed where he was, holding her hand. 'I'm right here with you,' he said to her.

At 12.01, her eyes closed. Power Blaster held one hand while the paramedic took the pulse on the other wrist. 'She's gone,' the paramedic said, at 12.02.

'Gone?' Power Blaster looked up at the man. 'But I haven't moved the train yet.'

'I know, but I gave her a lethal injection; it was kinder this way. For both of you.'

'What right do you have to make that decision? She didn't want to die.'

'Nobody does, but trust me, she couldn't have survived, and even if she did, she'd have a lousy life. Besides, you can move the train now and know you didn't kill her.'

Power Blaster didn't know whether to feel anger or overwhelming sadness. A group of people had appeared on the platform. 'Who are they?' Power Blaster asked. 'They're letting people in to gloat, now?'

'No. Those are the funeral directors. They have a job to do, once you move the train.'

'About that, Power Blaster,' a man in a dark suit strode up and peered over the edge of the platform. 'We need to get these trains running as soon as possible, certainly by the rush hour.'

'Corporate asshole,' Power Blaster muttered under his breath, but knew it had to be done.

Sadness won out as he left the station. He turned his back on the photographers gathered outside, as he always did.

'Are you going to give us a victory roll, Power Blaster?' someone yelled.

'No,' Power Blaster replied, without turning around. 'There was no victory today.'

Most of them would have found it hard to believe what Power Blaster did after he flew home. He climbed into his mother's bed. 'Bad day at work?' Adriana Tate muttered, knowing something truly awful must have happened if her superhero son had crept into bed with her, like he used to as a small child when there was a thunderstorm.

Power Blaster couldn't answer, for by now, he was sobbing uncontrollably. Adriana put her arms round him to comfort him, as she'd done when he was a child. The only time he'd been like this as an adult was when Michael had died, and she'd been in an even worse state herself, then. At least now she could be strong for him. He'd tell her what had happened when he was ready.

She woke with him in her arms, as she had many times when he was small. Now, he was a big man, and her arm was numb. She tried, but failed, to extricate herself without waking him.

'Hungry?' she asked. He'd tell her what had happened when he was ready. She knew not to push him.

'Starving,' he said.

Over breakfast, he finally poured out the story. 'They didn't even give her a chance, Mum. They just killed her like she was some animal.'

'I know, that's horrible – but you're not a doctor, Nate. Those guys go through years of training. They knew she didn't stand a chance. Think about it – what kind of life would she have had if she did survive, with no legs, half her intestines missing...'

'Yeah. I guess you're right, but it's so unfair. Such a waste. Why did it even have to happen in the first place?'

'We'll never know.'

'I want to go to her funeral. I don't know her last name, though, so I don't know how to find out when it is.'

'Start with the news. There'll be a report, I expect, and they'll probably mention her name.'

'Yeah. There were paps there. Couldn't believe I wasn't going to do a victory roll.'

Power Blaster soon found out Karen's full name and the district where she'd lived. He could then access that district's funeral listing page and find out what he needed to know.

He went to the funeral as Nathan Tate, not as Power Blaster. Power Blaster showing up would turn the whole thing into a media circus and nobody would want that, least of all Power Blaster himself. He intended to be as unobtrusive as possible. If it was true what the New Agers often said, that the spirits of newly dead people often attended their own funerals, then Karen would know why he was there. Nobody else needed to. He'd be able to tell her family how sorry he was for their loss and then slip away.

Karen's mother, however, was curious. 'I don't think I know you,' she said, when Nathan approached her with condolences.

'I'm Nathan,' he said.

'She never mentioned a Nathan.'

'I hadn't known her long.'

'So how did you know her?'

'I saw her at the station. I liked her. We got chatting. I was about to ask her for a date when she saw her train was coming and ran for it...' he wiped his eyes. It was almost true. He had spoken to her at the station, and if things had been different, he might well have asked her out. She'd had lovely eyes.

Karen's mother gripped his arm. 'I wish you had. She used to cry herself to sleep because no boys were ever interested in her. I hope she knew you were. I wish we could have met because she introduced you to me...' she broke down.

'Me, too,' Nathan said. 'Me, too.'

When the family had gone, he walked back to the grave and placed a single red rose on it.

It goes to show, he thought, as he walked away, you never know what's going to happen, and you must do all the good you can, and seize all the happiness you can, while you can. Power Blaster resolved he was going to do exactly that.

***

If you'd like to know what Power Blaster did next, you'll find more of his story in these books:

The Raiders Trilogy

Book One

Book Three

Book Two

   

Power Blaster is a superhero who lives in a dimension not unlike our own, in the mega-nation of Innovia. No-one knows who he is or where his powers come from. 
After saving the life of the President several times, Power Blaster learns that a test of a nuclear warhead to defend the planet against asteroid strikes will have devastating consequences for his world and sets out to prevent it.

Power Blaster's actions lead to an unexpected result - a wormhole opens between his dimension and our own. Anyone in the vicinity is pulled through. People from diverse backgrounds and cultures must co-operate to survive and learn to live with the powers travel through the wormhole has bestowed on some of them.

A stable wormhole is established between the two dimensions. Power Blaster is determined to bring Desi Troyes, the person responsible for the bomb, to justice. Help comes from some rather unexpected sources. Meanwhile, Shanna Douglas sets out on a mission of her own, to find out if there is a cure for the life altering condition the wormhole gave her friend, Benedict Cole. Little does she know that she will stumble upon the secret of Power Blaster's mysterious origins.