Challenge #01675-D214: The Nut at the But
The way we use tools changes us. Anything from Sherlock Holmes to Tennis Elbow. -- Knitnan
Shanna hadn't thought of being a superhero when the alien ship crash landed in the ghetto. She just knew that alien debris was worth big cash and rushed into the burning frame to grab the first thing that looked portable. And then she ran for safety before the Enforcers could get there and arrest everyone who was too slow.
She got away. Far away. Didn't take the object out of her backpack until she was in a safe place where none of the securicams could see her. It was round, and vaguely sticky, but only when it touched her skin. It would not adhere to anything else. Of course, Shanna tried to make it do things. Alien debris was way more valuable when it could do things.
Something like this could be her ticket out of this dump. She didn't know how right she was... but how wrong she was about the way it would happen.
The Enforcers knocked on some of her neighbours' doors, and Shanna stuffed the disk down her shirt and into her bra. Which was a cheap, elastic sack with no underwires or contouring. If she'd had underwires, she might have died. Which was possibly the only time in her existence that her life was saved by her abject poverty.
The Enforcers knocked on her door and she barely had time to open it before they were ready with the ram. A thousand laser dots focussed on her chest and she could feel more than a few on her forehead. The Enforcers deliberately made them a little hot so they could intimidate the worthless with their authority.
Shanna knew the drill. Careful and slow. No sudden moves. Don't look them in the eye. Hands up but not too far up. Talk slow and civil and show your fear. They like the ones who look afraid. And then they slammed her against a wall. Frisked her. And tore what little she had apart. Shanna didn't resist. Answered all their questions. And let them beat on her like they would anyway.
When she came to, the disk had merged with her chest. She could point to things and repair them. She could fly. She could derive nourishment from the sun and the polluted air. She could extract and contain hazardous substances from anything. Including the city water, which was brown. And declared by all the people who could afford the pure water to be perfectly safe.
Shanna quickly realised that she'd never want to sell that disk, even if it was possible to tear it out of her flesh. It was worth too much to everyone around her. But she had to be smart about it.
She started with her block of flats. Repairing the elevator. Fixing the wobbly handrail that the absentee landlord hadn't fixed since possibly the revolution. Filling any empty bottle she found with water that she cleaned herself. And she removed the asbestos from the insulation and left it in the one dumpster that the city would always pick up.
Fixing the rest of the neighbourhood would have to be done in small doses. Without attracting the notice of the Enforcers. Who would see a flying black girl and shoot first.
Shanna worked in the day. Wearing street clothes and always carrying a parcel or a shopping bag. Everywhere she went, she left benefit in her wake. Small ones. A rotting step replaced with a new one. A cracked and dangerous linoleum patch restored to its former glory. And she took the poisons away from the buildings. Left them in dumpsters and trash bags so they could theoretically be collected by the sanitation workers.
It was when she saw five Enforcers beating on a child and yelled "Stop!" that Shanna discovered she could freeze people in place. She dragged the baby away from the brutes and lined the Enforcers up so they would be beating on each other if they un-froze. The un-freeze command was, "come on back," which she used on the little boy.
Shanna told him to go home, quick. She was not inclined to un-freeze the Enforcers. They thawed and hit each other after two hours. Which turned into a hit on the social media.
When she was finally discovered, they called her Repairz, and the Enforcers kept trying to stop her.
No matter how much money they offered, nobody in the ghetto wanted to collect it.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / bizoon]
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