Young Writers Society

It was the year A.D. 6035. Nelson “Nels” Tennyson stood at the apex of a shingled rooftop, looking out at the landscape. It was a beautiful sunset scene, with orange-red light spilling out across his hometown. Nels took in a deep breath, allowing the fresh, slightly cool, summer evening air to send a surge of vitality and liveliness through his frame. Every once in a while he would to this, go to an obscure rooftop to be alone for a moment or two. He enjoyed company, but occasionally some time alone felt called for.

Nels was a citizen of a civilization called Colonia, on a world named Terra Duenuo, or T-D, as its people colloquially referred to it. Colonia was a county-sized group of towns joined by a large, central Downtown, a district which contained many large structures and the seat of government. They were a relatively simple society, with many practices and cultural aspects that would likely seem familiar to you, dear reader. There were but few major differences.

Nels happened to be an embodiment of one of those differences. While most people in Colonia were indeed average, nondescript humans like you, a few were different, and called Metahumans, which simply means “changed humans.” They were, in most respects, the same as other humans, but they were all infused with special abilities, powers, or physical traits that set them apart. Nels, in particular, was possessed of rather reptilian traits, but still remained mostly human in appearance. To give a physical description of him, I would say that he was a rather well-built man of thirty-one, standing six-foot-three, with dirty-blonde hair and furry sideburns. I would also mention that he had, because of his status as a metahuman, a six-foot-long tail sprouting from the base of his spine.

Now, reader, I must stress here that Mister Tennyson is a rarity among Metahumans in respect to his tail. Most metahumans look perfectly normal as long as their powers are deactivated. Nels represents an uncommon, but not entirely unknown, occurrence in metahuman circles.

But what of his special powers? What great things could he do? Could he even do anything special? Such questions, reader, will be answered very shortly.

Nels started at the sound of an automobile squealing around a bend in the road below him. The vehicle surged forward, apparently being urged forth by a driver in a big hurry. Nels was not sure at first how to react, but then he recognized the driver. That left only one explanation for such behavior: the driver had stolen something, and he was trying as hard as he could to get away with it. Nels, having once been a police officer and possessing a strong sense of virtue, could not let that happen. Let’s do this, he said to himself.

Taking a few steps back, Nels prepared to leap. With expert timing he dashed forward at impossible speed, kicked off the roof, and soared over the lawn below and on to the roof of the speeding car, propelled by his superhumanly strong musculature. Once he landed, another of his abilities was displayed quite clearly. Like some types of lizard, Nels possessed the ability to stick to surfaces. Holding on for all he was worth, Nels soon adjusted to the car’s speed and began the process of dealing with its driver. However, the driver was not to be so easily deterred.

The driver, a young man named Stephen, or Steph for short, had gone through this ordeal many times before. He and Nels had a running rivalry of sorts. Steph would steal something, and Nels would catch him and turn him in to the police. They had repeated the dance again and again, and each time Steph failed it only made him try harder next time.

Steph had no intention to change his ways. He had not been raised well, and had taken up thievery during his youth. That trespass alone would not have been too hard to correct were it not for the fact that Steph found that he liked thievery. He thought of it as something of a sport, and Nels and the cops were on the other team. Steph had had many successful crimes, but Nels had never interfered with those. His showing up was almost a guarantee that Steph would fail, but that didn’t stop the youth from going down fighting.

This time, however, Steph was determined to even the odds. He had purchased a firearm and intended to use it if he needed to. After being startled by the thud of Nels landing on his car, Steph unloaded a few rounds through the roof, mostly as warnings. The effect was immediate. Nels’s hands and feet could be heard clambering away from the center of the roof and over to the driver’s side. The thumps of the metahuman’s heavy boots soon ceased, followed by the sight of him leaning over the edge of the car to look in the driver’s side window. Nels pointed at the door lock, his face completely impassive. He didn’t really expect Steph to honor his request, but he always felt compelled to ask anyway. True to form, Steph aimed his gun at Nels’s head and put his finger over the trigger. Nels retreated again, prompting Steph to lower the gun and refocus on driving.

Nels knew that it was now time to start finding a way into the vehicle. He hung on tight around several sharp turns that Steph took, thwarting the youth’s efforts to dislodge him from the automobile. After the last turn, Nels dug his fingers into the recently made bullet holes and began to pull with all his might. The car’s plastic-steel mixture roof began to give inch by inch, groaning before the vigilante’s power. Nels never got to finish his task, however, because a few more shots rang out, one far too close for comfort. That’s enough of that gun, Nels decided. Time to play it safe.

Steph wasn’t sure where to aim. Nels kept moving around, constantly causing trouble, and now Steph had managed to find his way, somehow, to a busy street where more focus given to simply driving would be demanded of him. He was fighting an uphill struggle, and was tiring quickly. He couldn’t last much longer. He had to finish this fight quickly.

Suddenly, a lurch! Nels had done something to the car, and judging by the sound, he had done it in the back. Before Steph could look in the rear-view mirror, there was a second sound, this time much gentler, which sounded like something closing. Steph looked in the mirror, but saw nothing. And that troubled him. He wanted Nels where he could see him. He had too many advantages when Steph didn’t know where he was.

With a sharp crash, the back seat suddenly flew open, revealing the interior of the automobile’s trunk, Nels inside, just finishing punching the seat down.

“Hello, Steph,” Nels said calmly. “Would you mind pulling over so we can get this over with?”

Steph eyed Nels in the rear-view mirror and aimed his gun over his shoulder at him. “Yes, I would mind. That’d ruin my day. Now get up here in the passenger seat, nice and easy, so I can keep an eye on you.”

Seeing few other options, Nels complied. He slid into the front seat gracefully and carefully, with Steph’s gun following him all the while. As he sat down, Nels noted that Steph’s efforts to keep Nels in view meant his driving competence was suffering greatly, a fact confirmed when he almost veered into oncoming traffic.

“Dang it!” Steph shouted. He tried to return to his original lane, but a truck had pulled into his original spot. “Idiot! Move!” Steph shouted at the driver who couldn’t really hear him. When the situation had been dealt with, he went back to trying to threaten Nels. However, the daring metahuman was done playing around.

“You know what? I’m through playing with you, Steph. You have ten seconds to either pull over or let me take the wheel, or I’ll have to get rough with you.”

Steph laughed, a sinister grin plastered to the front of his head. “You serious? You actually have the guts to say that with a gun to your head? What? Are you trying to see if your healing power works for your brain? We can both find out, if you want.”

“We won’t,” Nels said flatly, his mouth set in a determined line. “You’re about to lose, and I’m about to turn you in. End of story.”

“End of story? If that’s the way it is, then there’s no happy ending for you, Mister Tennyson,” Steph sneered. He pulled the trigger of his firearm, but nothing happened bar a loud click. Again he tried, but a similar thing happened. “Dumb thing! Fire!” Steph raged. He examined his gun, only to find that its clip was mysteriously absent. Steph looked at Nels, who looked disturbingly satisfied. The metahuman’s tail snaked into view, the end of it coiled around Steph’s ammunition clip.

“Looking for this?” Nels asked with a smile.

“Crud,” was Steph’s only response.

Once that was done, Nels sprang into action. With lightning-like speed and incredible efficiency, he commandeered the steering wheel with his hands, slammed the driver’s seat’s back down with his feet, hauled Steph out of the seat with his tail, and sat down once the youth was out of the way. Nels buckled Steph in with his tail and began to work on reversing their course.

“Mind telling me where you got that fancy gadget in your trunk?” Nels asked, referring to Steph’s stolen cargo.

Realizing that he had truly lost the struggle, Steph answered honestly. “Some random house in the suburbs. I noticed that some scientist lady lived there, so I figured she’d have something good to take. Never figured out what the gadget does, but I figured it would bring a good price.”

“It might have,” Nels conceded. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Your victim probably built it herself. Give me her address, and I’ll save her the headache of having to build a new one.”

“230 Ludwig,” Steph replied shortly.

Nels raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Really? I know that ‘scientist lady.’ She’s a friend and old co-worker of mine. Don’t bother giving me directions. I know the way there.”

Some time later, Nels and Steph arrived at their destination, the “random house in the suburbs.” It certainly appeared random and nondescript, but Nels knew that one of the world’s finest, if not the world’s finest, minds resided here. She used to be a professional inventor and technology developer for the local government, but soon amassed enough money from her work to retire, and on extremely strong financial standing. Nels had run into her during his time on the police force, and she had agreed to interlace several of his outfits with special synthetic fibers called Adaptive Polymers. These gave clothing the ability to adapt to whatever power the wearer was currently using so that they did not impede the power’s performance or leave the user disrobed. Nels’s only power that needed these polymers to work was his chameleon-like ability to camouflage himself, but that was still enough to warrant the use of adaptive clothing. After this, Nels and his acquaintance, named Rita Baine, kept in touch, remaining good friends.

Nels hauled Steph out of the car and wrapped him up in his tail while he grabbed the previously stolen device with his hands and carried it to Rita’s front door. He rapped politely on the barrier, then waited for a response.

Rita Baine, a somewhat thin, slightly tall, blonde woman in her early thirties opened the door. Her expression contained a mixture of gladness at seeing Nels again and surprise at the squirming youth wrapped up in his tail and suspended to Nels’s right.

“Nels! So good to see you!” Rita exclaimed.

“Nice to see you too, Rita,” Nels replied.

Pointing to Steph, Rita asked, “Who’s that?”

Nels shrugged with a smile. “Oh, just some trash I have to do away with. I believe this is yours.” He handed the device to Rita.

“Yes, thank you!” Rita answered relieved. She turned to another woman behind her. “See? Now we don’t have to rebuild it!”

Nels glanced at the other woman. She was small, almost abnormally so. Despite normal-looking proportions that marked her as an adult, she was almost girlish in appearance due to her diminutive height. Nels doubted that she was any taller than five feet even. Still, she was far from bad-looking with her reddish blonde hair and smooth face. As for her build, it was actually a bit athletic, being trim, but slightly thicker than Rita’s thin frame.

“Who’s your little fiend?” Nels asked, gesturing to Rita’s diminutive companion.

“Oh, right. Introductions,” Rita admonished herself. “Gina, Nels Tennyson. Nels, Gina Tessar.”

The two shook hands and exchanged friendly smiles. Neither noted that there was more than a foot of height difference between the two of them. Rita almost mentioned it, but decided against doing so. She still found it a bit amusing, though.

“Gina is helping me with an experiment involving this contraption that you have so graciously returned to me,” Rita said.

“Interesting,” Nels commented, stroking his chin. “What does it do?”

“It induces a physical alteration of a target in which its mass and volume are allowed to increase in direct proportion to each other,” Rita said.

After a beat had passed, Nels said, “I’m not sure what all those words mean, but it sounds fascinating.”

Rita laughed and Gina giggled. “All that means,” Gina told him, “is that it can make things proportionately enlarge.”

Nels crossed his arms, something he did a lot, and something that made him look confident and impressive. “Interesting,” he repeated. “That could be useful, I imagine.” When Steph squirmed and muttered something nasty under his breath, Nels sighed and let his arms go slack. “I’m so sorry, Rita. I got to ditch this kid. I’ll come by again to hear more about the physical alteration in direct proportion to volume…thing.”

“No problem,” Rita smiled. “Go do what you have to. See you soon.”

Nels waved at the scientist and her partner. “See you later, Rita, Gina.” With that, he was off to dispose of Steph at the police station.