"Die die die DIE!"
       The heated M-16 ignited in another deafening volley of automatic fire as Jared fought to aim and, at the same time, not fall out of the shotgun-side door window of the armored car. Below him, the black asphalt and painted white bike lane stripe of Washington Boulevard blurred from the eighty-plus miles-per-hour speed and took on an eerie strobe effect as segmented street lamps whisked by. Jared's brother and partner, Lloyd, behind the wheel, had taken out two of those city-built posts and a Phoenix bus stop shelter so far in their now twenty-three minute high-speed getaway-gone-bad.
       "Did you get him?" Lloyd yelled, his foot pressing the accelerator to the floor and his arms straining with the wheel. Lloyd was the leader of their crew, a crew that, before tonight, boasted a flawless record of precision heists. He wore stolen coveralls with the logo of S.R.P.—Salt River Project, the Tempe area's power company—and a Teflon vest under that.
       The string of obscenities his brother bellowed gave him his answer.
       Behind the roaring hijacked truck, a half-dozen city police cruisers were in hot pursuit, their blue and red lights Turnerizing the black-and-white Saturday night, their sirens piercing ears and adding to the mayhem. There had been seven, but one officer's attempt at running the truck off the road had put his car into a roll, and he and his partner were in an ambulance to St. Joseph's hospital. Above, a PPD helicopter followed, its spot shining down on the prey. More units were somewhere ahead, trying to clear the streets and keep civilians from getting killed—Lloyd's police scanner, sitting on the dashboard next to clips of extra ammo, told them this.
       A face appeared in the sliding metal window separating the rear of the vehicle—where the twelve million dollars in cash was—from the cab. It belonged to Nestor, the crew's tech and explosives man, who once was Lloyd's cellmate in Folsom.
       "What's the plan, Stan?" he asked tensely of Lloyd (calling him 'Stan' only because he had a thing about ending his questions in rhyme).
       "This sucks!" came Jimmy's disembodied voice, somewhere behind Nestor. Jimmy rounded out their crew, a former military man with eyes like a hawk, making him the perfect choice for recon and lookout. "This never should have gone down like this! We're eight ways screwed!"
       "Shut up!" Lloyd yelled back, concentrating on the road and his side mirror. "It's a setback. We improvise."
       "Setback?!" Jimmy yelled, incredulously. "We're pulling an O.J. through the middle of the city, man! The whole cast of Cop Rock is on our tail!"
       "What's the plan?" Nestor asked again. It wasn't a demanding question. He'd been with Lloyd too many years. He knew Lloyd was always the man with the plan.
       Lloyd's cheek twitched, and he checked the side mirror again. Then he found Nestor's eyes in the rear-view. Nestor read Lloyd's. Nestor subtly smiled. As always, Lloyd knew exactly what he was doing.
       Jared slipped back into the cab, cursing under his breath, and popped out the spent clip. He had another loaded and ready in a heartbeat, the movement second nature to him after years in his chosen profession. He held tight to the door handle as Lloyd took a corner that almost tipped them over. As soon as the Gs subsided, he was back out the window, pausing only long enough to speak to his brother.
       "Whatever you're doing," he told Lloyd, "do it quick. I can't shake this guy."
       With that, Jared was out and firing again, his legs bracing him against the door, his arms commanding the rifle. The cruisers flashed and wailed a hundred or so feet behind, keeping their distance. They weren't Jared's target. His target was only twenty feet behind them, riding a metal-alloy board on winds that answered the target's every command.
       The flying young man Jared Kenney was trying so hard to kill was Phoenix's very own super-hero, Windjammer.

       Windjammer saw the guy start shooting again, and instantly he shot upward ten feet. Then ten right, then left, then down again, weaving and bobbing in the air behind the stolen truck like a radar-locked hummingbird. He had arrived on the scene just minutes before. He'd been driving home from his waiter job at the Hyatt Resort at Gainey Ranch's famed Golden Swan restaurant when his pager had gone off, one given to him by Captain Edward Bonilla, and used only when the situation was really serious. Shane could see the serious part here, all right. These hijackers were speeding around town and running over everything in their path as they tried to get away, and someone was going to get killed if they weren't stopped. Shane had watched enough Fox-TV reality shows to know how long these kind of chases could go on, and he figured that's exactly why the Captain had called him—to see if he could work a little magic with his mysterious—and now world-famous—powers and put and end to this little drama without any funeral arrangements having to be made. Cool. He could do that.
       Problem was, he was having a little trouble figuring out exactly how.
       He was tailing them while he was thinking, figuring maybe he could take some heat off the cops and get them to focus on him. He'd been right about that, and this guy with the gun was going to get lucky sooner or later. He needed to come up with something fast. He thought about just calling up a big wind and shoving them off the road, but at the moment, the chase was going through a business district and someone could easily get killed (you know, that thing he was trying to keep from happening?). He thought for a stupidly brave moment of just flying up to the side, jumping through one of the windows, and trying to get control of the vehicle. Then a hail of bullets flew past his left ear and reminded him that he'd never get that close.
       He ducked and pulled a hard, low left, nestling in behind the truck for cover while he planned his next move. His board skimmed about three feet above the street, and he was about five feet from the rear doors. He relaxed for a moment, breathing and collecting his thoughts.
       One of the armored, small window compartments on the rear doors slid open. Both barrels of a shotgun slid out, and Windjammer found himself looking almost straight down them.
       Being a super-hero, he screamed.
       He dropped and ducked just as the 8-gauge roared like a cannon, and only a certifiable miracle kept his head from being caught in the spray. He dove from reflex, not forethought, so control was laughable at best. His board caught the road and tossed a burst of sparks in a wake behind them. Windjammer jerked forward from the force of the impact, and it was reflex again—not skill—that saved him from a face-plant against the road reflectors. He called for wind--any wind—and a haphazard gust grasped him and his board and threw them up in the air. He spun over and over, unable to get his bearings, and could feel himself tumbling backward. If he could just figure out which was earth and which was sky, he was sure he could right himself, but for the moment, all he could do was pull up wind after wind and pray that one of them wouldn't be the one to redub him as "Arizona's Very Own Roadkill".
       His knees hit first, and he could hear glass shatter and crumble. Then his chest and arms—his arms had ended up in front of his face—hit next. He grimaced and waited for the pain of the impact to hit and set in. And it did, right on schedule. He shook his head to fend off the stun, then finally opened his eyes.
       Through dirty, cracked windshield glass, he saw the face of Captain Bonilla. Bonilla just stared at him and shook his head, sighing.
       Shane looked over his shoulder, toward the front of the car. They were still going, top-speed. He had managed to toss himself over all the squad cars and land on Bonilla's Chevy, which was bringing up the rear. Shane's lightly-armored knees (once again he gave thanks northward for the guys at Rising Technologies who'd designed the swell costume for him) had shattered the passenger side glass, and cracks had grown over to most of the driver side from it. He felt something stiffer than a Chevy hood beneath him and realized he'd managed to land on his board. At least he wouldn't have to run all over town looking for it later.
       Bonilla, not looking happy at all, cranked down his window and hung his head out of it to be able to see the road (seemed there was a super-hero blocking his view).
       "Whoops," Windjammer said, getting a hand on the roof of the car for support.
       "Are you still in this?" Bonilla yelled over the noise of his gunning engine, steering one-handed and holding his .38 out the window with the other.
       Shane moved a little to check himself, make sure nothing was broken. "Yeah," he said. He tried to sit up a little, and for a moment let the fact that he was laying on the hood of a Chevy doing forty miles over the speed limit sink in. Sometimes it was hard to accept that this was really his life he was leading, and not some Stephen J. Cannell TV show. "I'm functional."
       "Then you better get in it now," Bonilla yelled, suddenly urgent, looking ahead.
       Shane craned his neck to get a view of what was going on, looking past the cars and up to the truck. Nothing much looked like it had changed, so he didn't understand the look of panic he'd just seen on Bonilla's face. Then he looked further ahead, and his whole chest clenched like a fist.
       The bridge.
       As he watched, the speeding truck turned onto the Mill Avenue bridge, barely making the turn and keeping from crashing through the cement sidewall and tumbling over the side. It did, however, crash through several wooden barriers—the bridge was closed for two weeks for construction and maintenance, and detour signs warned drivers away and guided them to an alternate route. The aptly-named bridge—after several hundred feet—emptied right onto Mill Avenue in the heart of Tempe. Mill was not even a mile from the ASU campus, and the famous street was probably the biggest weekend hotspot in the greater Phoenix area. The avenue was loaded with restaurants, bars, clubs, coffee houses, bookstores, theaters, every kind of diversion a college student could hope for. Every weekend, the street and its sidewalks were packed with countless thousands of students, tourists, and locals looking for a good time. It was one of Shane and Jerry's favorite spots, and, having grown up in the area, Shane knew just about every inch of the strip.
       As such, he could clearly visualize what would happen when a several-ton truck went barreling down it like a runaway freight train. The body count would be the top story on GNN for weeks to come.
       He scrambled to get his board out from under him, held it down near his feet, and rolled off the hood of the Chevy. His board caught wind just before it caught street, and he was upright again, riding alongside the driver's door and Bonilla. He gave Bonilla one last, quick, harried look, then rocketed up into the night and over the speeding cruisers.
       In seconds he had overtaken the truck, and he flew right past it. He kept going until he was near the end of the bridge, and then he slowed, spun on a crosswind, and landed with his feet on the center line between the two south-bound lanes. He'd caught his board on the way down in his right hand, and he now set it next to him, stood back up, and faced the oncoming truck.
       Well, here he was.
       A plan was going to come to him. Any time now. He was sure of it.

       "There he is!" Jared yelled, back inside the cab for a moment. Lloyd saw him too. The punk super pretty boy was a few hundred feet ahead, just standing there.
       Nestor looked through the windshield, then over his shoulder out one of the back portals. Flashing lights were everywhere back there. They were pinned in, the roast beef in a sandwich of Arizona heat.
       "There's Mill," Lloyd told them, still in control but tense from scalp to heels. "We bust through, bail out, and disappear in the crowd. We go for the alternate safe house and hook up. Extraction plan stays the same."
       "And him?" Jared asked, watching Windjammer grow a little bigger with each passing second.
       Lloyd's cheek twitched again. "Boy wants to be a speedbump," he said, calmly. "Pinocchio's going to get his wish."

       Behind him, Windjammer could hear the deep bass thump of any number of Scottsdale white boy gangsta wannabes' car stereos, a grim reminder of what was at stake. The truck wasn't slowing. If anything, it was coming faster.
       He took a deep breath and fixed his stance, raising his hands slightly in a conjuring gesture. His hair began to rise and whip around him as the crisp November night started to come to invisible life. He'd been able to do these things for years, but still couldn't tell anyone exactly how he did them. It just came naturally, like he and the skies were born to be together. He thought it, and winds began to grow...and grow.
       The roar of the truck now drowned out the thump of the hip-hop playing behind him. But soon after, the winds enveloped everything. He called on everything he could from the air, and more after that, all of it bearing down on the metal beast's front end. His inner dialogue was in a screaming panic, telling him that he needed another plan right now. He wasn't really trying to hold back a top-speed armored car just using air, was he?
       Unfortunately, he was.

       Jared hung out the window again, this time aiming his rifle forward. He squinted against the wind, his long black hair flogging his face and stinging his eyes. He was well used to firing from speeding vehicles. Hey, he'd even done if from a couple of speedboats in his career, back when they were making the rounds in Miami. But, until now, he'd never had to do it in the middle of a hurricane.
       He cursed loudly, jerking his head to clear his vision. "Gimme a break with this!" he shouted, and opened fire, lighting up the cab in staccato flashes.

       Asphalt near Windjammer suddenly flew up in chunks and pieces. He crouched, quickly, but would not—could not—move. He only hoped his built-in armor would do the job if the guy managed to tag him. He couldn't falter. He couldn't lose concentration for a moment. What he was doing now was pushing the limits of anything that had come before, even his manual landing of the unmanned helicopter on the Capitol lawn that time. He was pulling out all the stops, and he was feeling the strain. He and the sky were one—and when he pushed it to do things he couldn't control, it cost him. There was a jackhammer pounding growing in his temples, and he could feel sweat soaking him beneath his blue-and-white costume.
       The truck kept coming. And so did the wind.

       "Would you nail that punk, Jared?!" Lloyd shouted.
       Jared couldn't hear him. The wind had become too much, and the roar of it in his ears was all he could perceive. He was beyond aiming now—his vision only worked every few seconds, no matter how tight he clenched his eyes. He was just unloading lead on his best guess, firing wildly ahead of them and hoping that one of the shots would bring a sudden halt to the wind, telling him he'd found his mark. He'd started out leaning near the front of the door window, but now he was pressed against the back of it, and the frame of the door was pushing painfully into his lower back.
       Suddenly he lost his hold on the gun, and it flew back toward the rear of the truck. He grabbed at the strap at the last moment, and the force nearly yanked his arm out of the socket, and him out of the truck. With a yelp of pain, he let it go; it flew off into the night. He grabbed at the door in a death grip, jamming his legs under the dash, and pulled himself back in.
       "I lost it!" he yelled. "I lost it!"
       Lloyd snarled, seemingly trying to push his foot and the gas pedal right through the cab floor. The wheel was fighting him, and it was taking all his upper body strength to keep control.
       This had to be his imagination. Was the truck actually starting to slow?

       Windjammer was down on one knee, his hands held out before him. Even holding his arms up now was a heroic effort. He was taking huge, gasping breaths, and his lungs burned. His brow was creased in locked determination. He knew he was asking too much—way too much—but the truck was almost on him, almost to Mill Avenue, and he was now out of options. A wave of hopelessness washed over him as he started knowing with certainty that he was going to fail. But he couldn't fail! People were counting on him! People could die! People he went to school with! Jerry could even be out there tonight!

       Jared jammed the window switch, and the door glass rolled up, rattling all the way. The whole truck was shaking violently. Clips of ammo tumbled off the dash and clattered to the floor.
       "What's going on?!" Jimmy was shouting from the back.
       "Do something!" Jared shouted over the chaos to his brother. "This truck's going to come apart!"
       "He's mine!" Lloyd yelled back, his eyes fixed the kneeling Windjammer, his resolve cemented. "This punk is mine!!"

       The beast was slowing, but not enough. Windjammer was now bathed in its headlights. In moments, it would go right through him, right over him, and break through the flimsy barricades that would be the only things left to keep it from unleashing the carnage he was starting to see in his head as clear as a big budget Hollywood blockbuster in full horrific Technicolor.
       "No," he breathed, close to passing out. "No…
       "NOOOOO!!"

       Lloyd and Jared Kenny’s arms flew up to their faces as the armored car's windshield exploded inward, showering them in a million shards of coated safety glass. The horizontal tornado of wind that broke through pressed them flat against their seat-backs, and rushed through the partition window in an instantaneous jetstream. The rear doors of the truck blew open, and Nestor, Jimmy, and bags filled with twelve million dead presidents tumbled out the back.

       Windjammer had no idea where the final burst had come from, but it had taken everything he had. He dropped to his hands, close to puking, and looked up as the truck lurched to its left. As soon as it did, its front right wheel buckled, and the truck flipped over on its side with an unearthly crash and an explosion of sparks. Then it flipped again, and again, tumbling above the street, striking the bridge periodically and crushing in on itself.
       Tumbling right toward him.
       Pants-wetting panic gave him the strength to get to his feet as the beast hit again, flew up, and started coming right down on top of him. There was no way, no time for him to use his powers. Windjammer ran, and the last half of his run became a leap for his life. The truck slammed the street right where he'd been kneeling, and he soared over the bridge's railing, barely grabbing it with one arm on his way over. He struck the bridge full-body, managing to keep his grip, knowing he wouldn't have been able to catch himself with a wind if he'd missed.
       The truck hit again and stayed down, rolling like an armored log toward Mill. It finally gave up rolling and simply slid, piercing the night with a nails-on-chalkboard screech and cutting deep furrows in the asphalt. It slowed, reluctantly, and at last ground to a halt a mere two feet from a wooden divider that read "bridge closed".
       Windjammer pulled himself up with great effort, finally getting his waist over the rail. Police cruisers sped up, screeching to near synchronous rest behind the truck. Phoenix's finest leapt from their thrown-open doors, guns drawn, and rushed the truck.
       Windjammer, with a painful grunt, hoisted the rest of himself over the rail and collapsed on the walkway.

       The helicopter circled overhead, illuminating the fallen truck, the squad cars whose numbers had grown to twenty, a pair of ambulances, and the frenzied, cheering mob that had gathered at the Mill entrance of the bridge. Police were forced to supplement the wooden barricades with their own bodies to keep the crowd back, and Tempe's horse-mounted officers were riding amongst the throng of students, trying to keep control in what had become something akin to a carnival.
       Windjammer sat on the trunk of one of the squad cars, his board loyally and patiently resting next to him, as a medic took a look at a cut on his face he hadn't realized was there. It was nothing, and he felt a whole lot of guilt at it being tended to while he watched stretchers with damaged bank robbers get rolled into waiting ambulances. Yeah, let's make sure the city's heartthrob doesn't scar. Forget the fact that he could have easily killed four human beings. And they would forget that, he was sure, the adoring public. He glanced over at the crowd, half of them drunk already from club-hopping. All eyes were on him, the whole mob screaming his name and practically worshipping him. This was excitement to them, the Saturday night of a lifetime. Him? He felt sick to his stomach.
       Edward Bonilla walked up, his .38 now resting in its shoulder holster, dangling against his plain brown shirt. He pulled a soft pack of Marlboro reds from his shirt pocket, and fumbled in his pants pocket for his Zippo.
       "He gonna make it, doc?" he asked the medic wryly, smirking at Windjammer as he popped a smoke between his lips.
       "I'm fine," Windjammer said, clearly embarrassed by the treatment.
       "He is," the young, scruffy-faced medic agreed good-heartedly, putting some disinfectant back in his case and starting back to his ride. He paused to smile at Windjammer, looking a little light-headed from his brush with celebrity despite the matter-of-fact attitude he was trying to pull off. "Nice work."
       Windjammer watched him walk off. "Yeah," he said quietly. "Nice work."
       Bonilla stood in front of him and cocked his head slightly to meet Windjammer's eyes. "You're doing it again," he said after studying them, then popped open his Zippo. "Knock it off."
       "What? What am I doing?"
       "Doing that whole 'why did I do it that way, I should have done it different, Porter would have done everything right' thing. You beat yourself up a lot more than you do the bad guys, you know that?"
       Windjammer watched the second ambulance drive away, then looked over his shoulder at the crowd as he heard them cheering its departure. He shook his head, and felt of wave of shame for being part of his own generation.
       Bonilla lit his cigarette and blew cancerous smoke signals into the sky. "They're going to be fine, kid. Yeah, it's a miracle, but miracles seem to follow you around like flies. Sure, if those guys in the back hadn't landed on the cash bags, they'd have probably been torn up pretty good. But they did. I don't know why those guys in the front are still going to be able to walk after that tumble. But they are. You've got to learn to count your blessings. You know how many hostage standoffs I walked away from, thinking if I'd given them more time, or if we'd gone in sooner, things would have been different? You learn from these things, but you don't let them eat you up. You saved a lot of lives tonight."
       Bonilla glanced over at the crowd. One large football player-looking kid had taken a marker and written "WJ" on his chest and stomach, and was madly twirling his sweatshirt above his head. He looked like a Cardinals fan when the team scored one of its two or three touchdowns per season.
       "Maybe half of them are too drunk to know it," he conceded, "but a lot of kids get to graduate college now, get married, have kids, win Nobel prizes—"
       "The Jam, baby!!" the husky kid screamed hoarsely—jumping up on a barricade and proudly displaying his fan war paint—then lost his footing and tumbled back. The crowd parted slightly around the area where he landed with a smack.
       "—and four scumbags won't be robbing banks or shooting armored car drivers for a long time. That's one in the win column. Lighten up."
       Windjammer nodded, still not sure he was buying it. "I just don't know if I'm ever—" He searched for words. "—Going to feel like I really know what I'm doing. Everyone looks at me like, 'hey, he's the super-hero, we're safe now'. What if I don't have all the answers? What if I'm just some guy? What happens if I really screw up?"
       "Kid—" Bonilla began, a little exasperated, but patient. He put his thoughts together while he took a drag, then started walking toward the bridge rail, motioning for Windjammer to follow. Grabbing his board, Windjammer did so. They walked, slowly, side by side, while police lights burst to life and squad cars retreated past them back to the Washington side of the bridge.
       "Let me tell you a little something about the world, from a cop. I've been doing this a lot of years. You don't want to know what I've seen. I've seen things done to the human body, by other human beings, that I didn't even know were physically possible. I've seen speeding fathers hack up their babies, only to come down later and hang themselves in their cells when they find out what they did thanks to the almighty pipe. I've seen landlords burn down buildings—mommies, kiddies, doggies and all—just to cash in on the insurance. Don't take a philosopher or a genius to see it, kid. World's a big, mean place. People are scared. They're smart to be."
       They reached the rail, and together leaned against it. Windjammer was listening intently.
       Bonilla went on. "People know cops are out there. And that used to give people something, but not so much these days. They don't believe in us anymore. They know we're human, secret's out. The LAPD took care of that. Aw, screw that. It started way before that. Watergate, Iran-Contra. Authority used to mean security. Now people don't know who to trust. They don't know who to believe in."
       Bonilla nodded toward the crowd. "You see those people?"
       Windjammer looked. Just seeing him turn his gaze in their direction sent them into a frenzy. In the middle of them, he could see a Channel 12 camera poking out, surely zooming in on him and beaming his face all over Arizona. Maybe further. Who knew these days?
       "You know what's making them freak like that?" Bonilla asked.
       "Jagermeister?" Windjammer wondered, uncharacteristically sarcastic.
       "Hope."
       Windjammer scrunched an eye in confusion and looked back to the Captain.
       Bonilla planted his cigarette beneath his mustache and used the fingers that had held it to tap Windjammer's shoulder. "That's what you do, kid. You and Americana and that...uh...what is it, 'Cameo'? You're the only heroes we got left in this world. You give those people out there—those scared, desperate people who don't know what tomorrow's going to bring—hope. Hope that somewhere out there, something bigger than all of us is watching out for them."
       "So, what," Windjammer asked, frustrated and left wanting by this explanation, "I'm supposed to be there every time some guy holds up a liquor store?"
       "Nope," Bonilla said. "That's my job. And their job." He glanced at a passing squad car. "Your job," he said, turning his attention back to Windjammer, "is the hope part. Don't sell hope short, kid. It keeps people going. It's what gets a single mother with four mouths to feed out of bed in the morning to get dressed for her second job when she just got off her first job four hours ago. The human clock takes a licking, baby, and it's hope that makes the hands keep going 'round. It's why people play the Lottery. It's why they go to churches and synagogues. And it's why the world needs heroes."
       Windjammer leaned, breathed, and thought, but didn't speak.
       "I know you don't have all the answers," Bonilla said, comfortingly. "God knows I'm the one who knows you screw up once in a while. But they don't know that. And you're doing a lot better at this stuff than you think. You'll get better with time, too. What, you think I don't still make mistakes, all these years on the street? Just do what you're doing. Be their hero. And when the bullets stop and the credits roll and you managed to pull it off again without them finding out that you're 'just some guy'..."
       "Count my blessings," Windjammer finished for him, nodding, and grinning a little.
       "Count your blessings," Bonilla agreed in the voice of a teacher whose student might be getting it after all. "What they don't know won't hurt them. Now get out of here. Go home, take off the mask. You've been a hero enough tonight. Go be a college kid for a while."
       He slapped Windjammer on the back and turned back toward his Chevy. Windjammer watched him walk away.
       "You know," Windjammer said after him, "Patricia's going to pitch a beast of a hissy if you come home smelling like smoke again."
       "Ah," Bonilla said back dismissively, then turned around, walking backward for a moment. "I'll tell her I rode with McCaffrey again. That second hand smoke, you know." He inhaled the last of his cigarette and flicked the butt off the side of the bridge. "That stuff will kill you."
       With a final grin, he turned walked to his car. Windjammer smiled. Bonilla paused in front of his car, raising his hands in dismay, and moaned. "The world needs heroes? I got 'em bouncing off my windshield like bugs."
       Windjammer tossed his board toward the ground, catching it with a wind just before touchdown. He stepped onto it, mentally and physically exhausted, and unable to tell of which he was more. He turned toward Washington Boulevard, and slowly started rising into the air. Behind him, the crowd ignited. He closed his eyes and sighed, hovering for a moment. When he opened them again, he began to fly forward...and then suddenly pulled a wicked mid-air 180 and soared right back over the bridge, and right over the crowd. Their cheers could be heard as far as Sun Devil Stadium. He whisked by, flying low, and could see all their faces—laughing, screaming, one girl, oddly enough, even crying. He looked down on them, smiled widely, and gave them a blue-gloved thumbs-up. Then he rocketed down the center of Mill Avenue, heralded by a chorus of honking horns, and, right in front of Coffee Plantation, he caught a massive updraft and shot almost straight up into the night.
       And the people of Tempe watched their hero fly away into the stars.

       Shane's stance was relaxed but perfectly balanced, a sure tell of his many years spent on boards—first his skateboard with its Pearl Jam and Red Hot Chili Peppers decals, then his Rising Technologies upgrade—as he coasted through the skies with the lights of Tempe shimmering below. He felt immediately, and predictably, better up there. Up in the air, dancing with the wind, was where he felt most at home, where he could leave the worries and confusion of the world down below where they belonged. He'd parked his Jeep up in the Papago Park area, whipping off the main road and heading up to the Hole in the Rock climbing area (the site being named for a big rock with—surprise—a hole in it. Clever namers, those pioneers). Fortunately for him, there had been no high school kids parked up there in the lot making out, groping each other while overlooking the desert preserve. But that was earlier in the night—it was now getting close to eleven, and he might not be so lucky on his return. He'd have to worry about that when he got there, which, at this speed, would be just a couple of short minutes.
       He could feel the chill on his face, and was happy that his costume insulated from both cold and heat. It was November, after all, and though it never really got cold—by most of the country's understanding of cold—in Phoenix, he had still been wearing a jacket when he left work. It felt good to him, though. Seemed to help clear his head and put him at peace as the night's events were starting to fade from him. That was good. He planned on taking the Captain's advice, if his overactive conscious would let him. He was just going to count his blessings.
       He had a lot of blessings to count, lately, too, he thought, and that helped him pull even further from the memory of the bouncing, sparking armored car. Life was good. School was being really kind to him this semester, and finals were going to be just around the corner. His drama classes were especially satisfying, and he'd managed to bag a great part in an on-campus production that some up-and-coming writer from New York had penned (a playwright that Jerry, predictably, thought was a hack) called Hostages. He played Jackson, a Marine returning home after basic training, trapped in a snowed-in bus station with the rest of the cast. Jackson ends up questioning why he'd joined the Marines in the first place, figuring out he'd only done it to earn his father's love, and takes the snow-in as a sign to listen to his inner voice, go AWOL, and just leave the country and never come back. He interacts, and eventually gets romantically involved, with Sam, a girl on her way to a dinner with her family meant to cement an essentially arranged marriage to one of their town's more promising sons. They both decide to run away together, but by the end of the play, realize that running away isn't the answer—standing up to their families is. Sam goes to the dinner, resolved to tell her family and her suitor that her life and choices are her own, and Jackson goes home to tell his father 1) that he doesn't want to be a Marine, 2) he's going to stick out his four years and live up to his responsibilities, and 3) that he really wants to be a writer. Great character to play, this Jackson, but Shane found his favorite part of the experience to be playing against the character of Sam.
       Enter Renee.
       Shane met her, sitting with other hopefuls in a row of auditorium seats, at the audition. He was just making conversation, as he was apt to do. She was really cute, sure, but not the kind of cute that looks down at you from the magazine rack under the "Vogue" logo. She had brown hair that she wore kind of short, wore thin-rimmed glasses, and dressed conservatively (compared to most of the other girls there. This was September, and it was still 100 degrees outside, and Renee was the only one not wearing shorts). She'd been reading a textbook, of all things, and she looked a little annoyed when he started talking to her and interrupted her reading. She wasn't rude about it or anything, but it took him a little aback. Most girls seemed to be pretty happy when he talked to them.
       That kind of set the tone for how he felt about her, at the start—he pegged her as bookish and she seemed to have an attitude. She also, he found out, wasn't even a drama major. She was a Poly Sci major, a transfer from Colorado. But she'd done some acting in high school, and thought she could use a little release from her studies. Turned out she was taking eighteen units. Eighteen?! The thought of it made Shane shiver. So she was smart, and something of an overachiever, and seemed to not even care much for the group of people around her. He started looking for any common ground to talk about. He found out that she had Professor McDillon for Poly Sci 120. Shane laughed, and went off on how much of a dork the old guy was, how he’d barely been able to stay awake during the guy’s 101 course. Renee let him finish, and then told him that she was petitioning to be McDillon's assistant the following semester, and thought the man was a brilliant, insightful thinker.
       "Oh," Shane said. That was about all he could say. Hey, and speaking of dorks...
       He kind of closed the conversation after that, and she seemed just fine with that. Whatever, he found himself thinking, and wished he'd picked another row to sit in. Still, something about the thought of a Poly Sci workaholic trying out for a play stayed with him. It was a little intriguing. Not enough to make him want to talk to her again, but...
       So the auditions went on most of the day, and he got his shot. Hers came after his, and he found himself a little impressed with her, no matter how much he'd wanted not to be. As a drama major, he found the idea of a non-major just thinking she could jump into a play because she felt like it kind of insulting. But he had to ditch the indignation. She was good.
       The director gave callbacks within a day, and Shane gave a cheer after he hung up from the phone call that told him he'd be Jackson. He went down to the auditorium for the first cast meeting the following Saturday. He was surprised, but probably shouldn't have been, to see Renee there. The director then had everyone sit in a circle and introduce themselves and tell who they were to be in the play. Renee's turn in the circle came around. She'd been cast in the part of Sam.
       Oh, great.
       When his turn came, he wasn't his usual outgoing self, still dealing with the idea in his head of what the next four months were going to be like. He stumbled over his words, and uncomfortably got out the fact that he was Jackson. He saw Renee's subtle reaction. She looked just about how he imagined his own face must have when she announced her role. Oh, yeah. This was going to be fun.
       The whole cast went out for coffee after and got to know each other, and while the director was impressing the rest of the group with just how hip he was for someone twice their age, Renee sat down next to Shane, took a breath, and tried to break the iceberg. She spoke very bluntly, talking about how obvious it was that the two of them weren't necessarily thrilled with each other. He wasn't sure if he liked the honesty or not, but he went with it. She said that despite that, they had a play to do, and she felt very strongly about doing the best she could at whatever she set her mind to. Yeah, he could believe that. So, she said, she felt if they concentrated on the characters, and the play, that they could really make the Jackson/Sam relationship work. She said she'd watched his audition and felt he was a pretty competent actor (gee, thanks), and she was confident they could both put the other stuff aside and really make something of the play. That was fine with him. Actually, he found himself relieved. He really wanted to get some notice with this performance, and now he wasn't quite so afraid of her uptightness screwing things up. Basically, they called a truce. Cool. He was a professional, and if he wanted to keep on with acting, he'd have to deal with this kind of stuff in his career. This would be a good test. He resolved to do whatever it took to make the play work, even if it meant working off the Colorado ice princess.
       Rehearsals went well. There was the usual honeymoon awkwardness, but it seemed to be a promising group, and they all clicked well. There was a lot of just reading, initially, and he and Renee managed to stay in character better than he'd thought. They even got together in the activities hall outside of regular rehearsal to discuss and work on things, at her suggestion. She wanted to ensure they got it right, and Miss Type-A was going to make sure he did his part, too. They lightened up some, but it never really got friendly. It was all about the job. Again, cool with him.
       Eventually, the first real on-stage rehearsal came. Jackson and Sam met, told their stories, showed emotion, had big monologues. The director would stop them periodically and make comments. Shane would feel like he'd done something wrong. Renee would listen closely, focusing on the director's every word.
       And then the scene came that Shane knew he and she both dreaded. The first kiss, sitting there on the fake bus station bench and coming right after a big emotional exchange. They never actually talked about it during their outside rehearsals, but he knew it was on both their minds. He was sure that she, like himself, just wanted to get it over with and out of the way so they could get used to making it a regular thing. So their characters looked desperately into each others' eyes, spilled their guts, talked about their shared dreams and fears, and created electricity as their lips got closer and closer. Okay, Shane told himself, gearing up for the moment. Professional. He was an actor, and just wanted to get it behind him and get on with the scene. On cue, at just the right emotional moment, he took her face in his hands and kissed her.
       When their lips parted, several things occurred to him, in order, but almost at once. The first thing he noticed was that her eyes were closed, still, but then suddenly opened and looked right into his. And they weren't the eyes of Sam. These were Renee's brown, blinking eyes, and what he saw there wasn't the usual annoyance with his laid-back way of doing things, or the rigid focus she always seemed to wear. What was there was best described as uncertainty, maybe surprise, maybe an uncharacteristic lack of knowing everything that was going on her head and life every moment of her day. He also/next became aware of his own light-headedness, and the ghost-like tingling on his lips that held the memory of what just happened, though his brain seemed to be still processing it and running a few paces behind. Lastly, there was a growing, slightly panicked certainty that the kiss they both had just wanted to get out of way had lasted longer than it was supposed to. Maybe a lot longer.
       There was silence in the auditorium, and between the two of them. Shane couldn't decide if he should just go on with the scene, or if he should sit there and look dumbfounded, which is what his body really wanted him to do. Renee seemed to be in the same conundrum.        Finally, the silence was broken by the voice of the director, coming from his customary front-row seat.
       "Now that's entertainment!"
       There was burst of laughter, and Shane and Renee both looked to the front of the stage. All eyes in the place were on them. The director, grinning, sat there with his bag of popcorn that he never made it through a rehearsal without. The whole cast was now applauding, cheering, whooping it up. The director seemed to be enjoying himself more than any of them.
       Shane looked at Renee, and she was blushing a deep purple, looking like she wanted to be anywhere on Earth but on that stage right there and then. The self-consciousness hit Shane, too, and he suddenly felt very guilty, like somehow this was all his fault—whatever the heck "this" was. He had absolutely no idea what to say to her, deciding that anything he spoke right then would be disastrous.
       The laughter and the cheering started to die down, and the director spoke again. "If you two don't have other plans, like a trip to the islands or something—" More laughter, another brief round of applause. "—What do you say we go on with the scene?"
       Shane and Renee tried to collect themselves, and seemed unable to look each other straight in the eye, as the last of the audience merriment tapered off. Shane swallowed (and was sure everyone in the place heard it) and squared his shoulders in a gesture of readiness. He took a quick breath and tried to remind himself again that he was an actor, and that the next line was his. He could do this, no problem.
       He looked at Renee's face, and her eyes finally rose to meet his. Oh, she did not look happy. She looked completely humiliated and was starting to look angry. At him, or at herself, he couldn't tell yet. He licked his lips and sat there, frozen in time. Finally he turned his head to the director, and said in a small, sad voice...
       "Line?"
       Then the other actors lost control again, and it was pandemonium in the theater. Things never really got back on track for the rest of the day.
       He and Renee didn't speak after rehearsal. She, in fact, left before him and drove away before he even left the building. He went home confused and uptight, angry that things had been going so well for them and now he'd managed to screw it up. But beneath it all, he couldn't shake the memory of the kiss. Something happened in that—oh, heck, he had no idea how long the thing had lasted. Despite himself, he was suddenly thinking of her in a whole new way, and fell asleep that night thinking the lock of hair that often fell down in front of her face, and the way her glasses perched on her small, dainty nose, and wondering why he hadn't noticed these things before. And how much he wished he didn't now.
       They met the following night at the activities hall, keeping the schedule they'd made—an hour of rehearsal time before her night class. He arrived first, half-thinking she wouldn't even show. But she did. She came through the double doors, and walked straight to their usual spot (when it was open) on a green couch across from a snack and coffee vendor window. She set her pack down, now seeming very much her usual one-track self (maybe a little too much), and set her copy of the script on the table in front of them. She took a quick breath through her nose (the dainty one, he hated noticing) and turned to him, her demeanor very aloof, very controlled, very professional. He could tell right away there was a prepared speech coming.
       "Look," she said, focusing on his eyes and not wavering, not allowing herself to. "Let's just get this out of the way and get on with rehearsal. I have to go talk to my professor before class, so I don't have a lot of time."
       Shane nodded, happy to let her control the conversation, which took the pressure off of him. What he wasn't happy about, necessarily, was how cold she was purposely being. He wasn't sure exactly what he'd been expecting, but after such an amazing kiss, and—like it or not—a very real moment between the two of them, he felt he deserved at least a little better than this.
       "Let's not blow—whatever happened on stage last night—out of proportion. Let's not kid ourselves. We're just a couple of actors doing a romantic scene for the first time, and sometimes that gets confusing. We both know that's all that happened, right?"
       "Sure," he lied, sitting up, trying to take on her professional tone himself. He nodded like he was answering the boss at a corporate meeting or something.
       "Good," she nodded back. "Good, I'm glad to hear that. I mean, let's face it, the idea of there being anything else is just silly. You and I are just too different. I'm very academically focused, very organized, and you..." She chose her words carefully but swiftly, like she'd just referred to a mental thesaurus. "You have your own way. And it works for you, don't get me wrong. I don't mean it in a bad way."
       "Of course," he said, not really believing it. This conversation was going from disappointing to insulting.
       "And it's not like I have time for a relationship, either," she went on. "That's one of the promises I made to myself when I transferred here. I have a very clear set of goals to accomplish, and there's just no time for that kind of distraction."
       Something in that struck him as familiar. His first instinct was to be appalled at a bunged-up person like her degrading the whole experience of romance with a tag like "distraction", but he thought about his own life these past few months, and how he wasn't dating anyone. There had been chances. In his life, the chances had always been there. But he had school, and work, and the play, and also had to fly around in a silly costume and fight crime. When was the last time he'd had time for a date?
       "You see what I'm saying?" she asked, and he nodded, probably for the first time sincerely since she'd opened her mouth. "Okay. Then we can agree on this. We forget all about what happened last night and just go on with our working relationship." This last part was mostly command, but also question. She was calling the shots, but seemed to need his agreement.
       "Yeah," he said. Then he pulled up an even more convincing voice. "Yeah, of course. Totally. We're just actors, playing the parts."
       "Great," she said, relieved, seeming happy with herself that her prepared speech had succeeded just as planned. "That's settled." She reached for her copy of the script, to which she'd added colored tabs to mark key scenes. "Let's get on with this. I really don't have too much time."
       "Let's do it," he said. He grabbed his script out of his pack (he'd been so convinced she was going to stand him up that he hadn't even taken it out), and the two actors starting going over their scenes and lines, discussing their characters, and what Jackson and Sam were really feeling, and how to use that. Soon they were acting out their lines, by now used to ignoring the curious looks of passersby—looks there were very few of, actually; you didn't have to be on a college campus long to get immune to the out-of-the-ordinary. As the time neared for Renee to go meet her professor, they found themselves in the middle of the scene where Jackson and Sam talked about their families, and about family loyalty versus personal freedom, and about how their two very distant worlds really weren't all that far apart. The scene was rich with emotion, and the character intimacy was nearing its peak.
       "I can't marry someone I don't love," Sam nearly wept, sounding trapped "Why can't they see that? Why do my family and Chad and that whole God-forsaken town seem like they're from another planet?" She paused, looking to Jackson. "Have you ever been in love, Jackson?" she asked.
       Jackson thought about it. "I don't know," he said, both thoughtfully and sadly. "I mean...how do you know? How does anybody really know?"
       "How do you know?" she asked back, shocked and sympathetic. "What kind of question is that? You can't help but know, not when it's real, not when it's meant to be." She placed her hand on his chest (per stage direction), answering him warmly, affectionately. "You feel it in here. You feel it all over."
       "What if..." he asked, placing his hand over hers, looking lost and desperate and speaking like he was revealing a secret buried in his soul his whole lifetime. "What if you can't love?"
       They looked into each other's eyes, and Sam shook her head, slowly, quietly, her feelings for this man, her need to be inside his heart, welling up like tears. Sam started to tell him that sometimes, people have more love inside them than they'll ever know.
       But it was Renee who broke all stage direction, grabbed Shane, and kissed him ferociously.
       Now they really were getting looks, and a few surprised chuckles, but neither of them noticed or would have cared if they did.
       Renee didn't speak to her professor that night. Or make it to class, for that matter.
       They ended up walking the campus, talking a lot, holding hands, kissing some more. She seemed to do these things almost with guilt, like she was still making a big mistake but couldn't stop herself. The walls were down and they openly talked about how much they really did like each other, each one feeling more relieved when they heard the words from the other. And they laughed. Hearing her laugh was a wonderful surprise for him. He'd barely even seen her crack a smile before. Once she put down her guard, he got to see a lot more of the real her. He found out that she was, in fact, everything he'd seen already—smart, dedicated, not one for wasting time or opportunity. But she had her secret side, too, the one that liked to let its hair down—the one that made her try out for plays, watch "Married with Children", and even write and send an anonymous love letter to Sean Connery. He began to see the positive side of her focused nature, even respect it. Seeing a little of the fun Renee helped with that. He found he liked both Renees. Liked them a lot.
       But he got another big speech before the night was over. She was serious about the promise she'd made to herself—she didn't want to mess up her goals, and therefore didn't want to get into any kind of serious relationship, even with someone as painfully cute (her words! Woo hoo!) as him. She really liked him, and wanted to spend time with him...but needed to know if he understood there wouldn't be a whole lot of that time. She felt she had to be up front about this to be fair to him. And understand he did. In fact, he was able to be totally honest with her by saying that kind of thing worked out even better for him. This made her happy, and he felt great making her happy.
       And that's where it began. They saw each other at rehearsal, still had their "rehearsal times" (which often ended up unproductive), and spent time together when they could. She refused to define their relationship in boyfriend/girlfriend terms, preferring to refer to them as "dating". He could handle that, and, in fact, found her need for labeling endearing, just another cute Renee quirk to add to the list.
       And they did date. They went out, when both their schedules allowed, and had a great time. Since coming to Arizona, she'd seen almost nothing of the town. They went to movies, had meals, and he even managed to get her out clubbing. Fun Renee got out so rarely that she hadn't had much of chance to become a competent dancer, but she started getting better with time, once he got her around being self-conscious about it.
       He loved the way he could make her laugh just by not having any idea what she was talking about half the time. Hearing her sweet, quiet 'good night' in his ear at the end of their final pre-sleep phone calls warmed him like nothing else. Renee became a much-needed breath of fresh air in his life, and he looked forward to every moment he got to spend with her.
       Renee was out of town this particular weekend, attending a student leadership symposium in San Diego. He wondered if she'd turn on the news in her hotel room before going to bed and see the report on the big armored car chase and the super-hero Windjammer. He also wondered if their relationship would ever get to a point where he'd decide to tell her that he was really that same super-hero. He wondered how she'd take the news. But, as usual, when that thought came up, he pushed it away. Didn't seem worth worrying over right now. After all...they were just dating, right?
       School was good. Renee was good. As always, his roommate situation with Jerry couldn't be better. Jerry had been sinking nearly all his free time working on his version of a Windjammer screenplay, writing like a scribe possessed. Though Shane hadn't made a definite decision on whether he was going to take Terrance Cross up on his offer to fly him out to L.A. for the holidays and talk about his "future", Jerry kept on like it was a done deal. If they wanted to make a Windjammer movie, Jerry planned to make sure he was the one who wrote it.
       L.A.
       Okay, so not everything was going right in Shane's life.
       Shane felt a chill, but knew it wasn't from the night air. He hadn't wanted to think about this, but here it was, back again. This was a secret he kept to himself. He hadn't told Porter. He hadn't told Mom. He hadn't even told Jerry, and he told Jerry everything. But this time, he thought even Jerry was best left out of it. He was sure that all of them would think he'd lost his mind. He was halfway to convinced himself.
       About a month before, Shane had started having dreams. The thing that made this unusual was that it was always the same dream, repeating itself over and over, and it was so real he'd wake up not knowing where he was, or what was reality and what wasn't. It was a weird, cryptic dream, full of symbols. In it, a dark king—and his queen—were taking over a "city of angels", and then overthrowing the world. He'd find himself there, up against them, standing alongside these...figures or metaphors or something. There was an eagle, a knight, lightning... He was a part of them somehow, and they were the last hope for the world.
       Then the dream would change, and he'd find himself at a patio restaurant, looking over at a bank sign with a date and time on it: December 31st, 1996--3:37 p.m. Just over a month from now. Finally, he would hear a voice, the same spooky, booming voice each time.
       "The journey must come. The king must fall. Remus has spoken."
       And then he'd wake, drenched in sweat, terrified. The last time he'd wrapped his blanket around himself and stepped outside their apartment front door, out to the railing, out below the stars. He was sure he must be going crazy. But he couldn't shake the feeling that the dreams meant something, like someone was trying to tell him something. But what? Who was the dark king? What did it have to do with him? Whatever it was, the dreams seemed to be telling him that it was going to happen in L.A. at 3:37 p.m. on New Year's Eve. The fact that Terrance Cross was offering to fly him out there right about that time unsettled him even more. There was feeling of purpose, of greater things at work. But it still scared him, and that alone had him close to just calling off the whole thing and staying home for the holidays.
       He was now losing his good "count your blessings" vibe as he circled over the deserted parking lot. Just his Jeep. That was a good sign. He checked the area over a couple of more times, though, just to be sure. When he could find no one, he quietly dropped into a landing next to his shiny black Jeep, catching his board expertly in his hand as his boots softly touched the asphalt and the gravel scattered on it.
       He tossed his board in the back and yanked his bag out from under the seat. Unzipping it, he pulled out the black pants and white shirt that made up the bulk of his waiter uniform. He'd been wearing them home when the pager had gone off, and he'd been forced to make a quick change out here in the dark into a more suitable uniform for high-speed chases. He tossed them over the back of the front seat as he stood beside the Jeep, first pulling off his mask, then his gloves, then sitting down for a moment to take off his boots. He jammed them all in the bag, and then started working his way out of his costume. With the protection it gave it should have been a lot stiffer, but even with it's high-tech, light-weight fibers, it was a little tough to wrangle.
       He finally got it off, folded it up, and put it, too, into the bag. Leaving the bag on the seat, standing in a pair of plaid boxers, he reached for his slacks. Taking off the suit felt good in a symbolic kind of way tonight. He really wanted to leave it all behind him, as Bonilla had told him too. He didn't want to have to worry about the fate of the world or making movies or giving anyone the hope that was missing in their lives. He just wanted to go home, pop open an ice-cold Mountain Dew, and find some crappy movie on cable that he and Jerry could make fun of while eating Fritos and bean dip. Maybe that didn't sound like the most amazing night in the world to most people, but to him, it sounded like the perfect end to his evening.
       "Nice legs."
       He spun around so fast he dropped his pants, and they landed half in and half out of the Jeep, gravity quickly pulling them down to the pavement. His heart sent electric shocks to every part of his body. What he saw when he finished his spin took a couple of seconds to register as anything that made sense. There was a face right in front of his—but there was no body attached to it. He then saw that the face was upside down, long blond hair dangling and waving in the wind below it. That particular image only made sense when he deduced that the body attached to the widely smiling face was hovering upside down in mid-air.
       Oh, God.
       The girl did a twist like an Olympic diver and planted her feet. Without hesitating, she lunged forward, pressing her bikini/costume-clad body against his chest and sliding her arms around his neck. Her fingers worked into his hair at the back of his head, and she pressed her lips hungrily into his. Shane fell back—and the girl with him—but his car seat caught them. He sucked in a breath through his nose, still trying to catch up with what was happening, and the girl kept kissing him. Soon his brain just went into neutral and instincts took over, and his arms—on auto-pilot—slipped around her waist. The kiss lost its urgency, became more tender, and finally ended when she pulled her lips slowly away, then punctuated the moment with a final, soft, sweet caress that left a moist smack in the air.
       He opened his eyes, and there she was, now smiling again, smiling with those Michelle Pfeiffer lips that he hadn't been able to forget, try though he did.
       Delight.
       "Hiya, cowboy," she said, happily. "Miss me?"