Lodestone #5: Circle of Friends

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Lodestone

" Circle of Friends " by Martin Maenza

She felt the intense heat on the exposed potion of her face, causing her to hesitate momentarily. The crimson and orange flames swelled, rising higher into the sky as if trying to replace the crumbling masonry that her telekinesis had torn away only moments ago. Taking a deep breath, she summoned up her force field and plunged head first into the inferno.

Once through the perimeter of the blaze, Lodestone found herself in what remained of the older apartment's family room. Smoke hung thickly from the ceiling, slowly working its way downward. Flames engulfed the furniture and rugs, making a most difficult obstacle course on the floor. She wasn't sure how stable the floor was, given that the lower levels of the building were also on fire; she thought it best to keep herself levitated a foot in the air.

"Hello!" she called out. "Maria! Roberto!" Lodestone stopped and tried to listen over the crackling flames. A faint voice cried out from the back bedroom, but she could not make out the words. "Stay where you are! Help is coming!" She floated down the hall and to the left.

The air conditioner housed in wall exploded just before she reached the bedroom door. Her force field buffeted most of the blast yet it still managed to startle her. Sweat formed on her brow; she knew she needed to hurry and rescue the last of the stranded residents of this apartment.

Lodestone glanced around the smoke filled room and made out a dark-haired head bobbing just behind the edge of the bed. The heroine slowly made her way around the bed and allowed the frightened children to see her before she spoke. "Hello, I'm Lodestone."

The twins had retreated to a corner of the room to keep safe. Though scared, the two looked at one another curiously. " Esta ella una angel?" Maria asked.

Roberto shrugged his shoulders; both looked back at her.

"No, I am not an angel," Lodestone responded in Spanish. "Just a friend." She extended her red gloved hands to them and parted her transparent force field. "Come close to me and I'll take you to your mother. She is waiting to see you." When the five year olds moved closer, she carefully scooped each one in her arms. Maria put her arms around Lodestone's neck while Roberto clung to her chest.

***

The short brown-haired teen in the beige blouse drummed her perfectly manicured nails on the wooden table top. "Where is she?" Cynthia Brekmann asked. "We did say 8:30." She looked across the table at her classmate Jo Thomsen. "Right?"

The girl with long tied-back brown hair was wearing a brown and green cardigan over a white Gap T-shirt. Jo unrivitted her eyes, glanced at the clock over the door that now read 8:35 and focused once more on Cynthia. "Yeah, 8:30 is what we said."

"She'll be here," Anita Hanson said. The African-American who wore a printed top with matching pants had just returned from the pay phone. "I called her house - no answer - so I know she is on her way."

"Well," Cynthia said with a slight hint of disgust in her voice. "Let's at least get our order in. I'm starved." She snatched one of the menus from the table.

***

As she descended to street level, cheers from the crowd of onlookers welcomed the costumed heroine. Some were those who had evacuated the building on their own while others were neighbors or passersby who were drawn by the flashing red lights and sirens. The firefighters acknowledged her return briefly and then continued with their tasks of keeping the blaze under control.

When Lodestone touched down, Roberto and Maria were slightly disappointed that their first flying experience was ending. Then their faces lit up, and they ran over to a woman in the crowd they recognized.

A tearful Carmen Verde opened her arms wide, caught her two children and pulled them to her tightly. " Dios! Gracias!" she said over and over. Then the Hispanic woman looked up at the masked blonde teen still standing before her. She could see the heroine smiling at the reunion. Carmen smiled back appreciatively. "Muchas gracias, senorita."

Lodestone nodded to the mother. "De nada." She patted Roberto gently on the head, turned and then approached the chief of the firefighters. "Is there anything else I can help you out with?" she asked him.

Calvin Winters tipped up his red hat to wipe his dark brow. "I think that accounts for everyone, Lodestone. We really appreciate the assist." He scanned the area quickly to check on his crew and then turned back to her. "I think we can handle the rest." He extended his right hand to her. "Thanks again for stopping by and pitching in."

Lodestone shook his hand. "Glad I happened by." She then turned, made her way past the rescued residents and onlookers, and took to the air once more. She flew up and over a nearby brownstone only to drop quickly again into an alleyway a few blocks away.

The heroine looked around and, satisfied that she was alone, slipped behind a large metal dumpster. I'd better hurry, she thought as she retrieved the canvas book bag that she had hidden here thirty minutes earlier. She unzipped the flap and began pulling out her jeans and a turtleneck from the bag. I'm so late but it couldn't be helped. I can't just ignore opportunities to help out. She quickly removed her belt, mask and gloves. Then she propped herself against the shadowy wall, pulled off the red boots and began slipping the clothes over the gray spandex body suit of her costume.

***

The waiter had just served the teenage girls their pizzas when two young men their age decided to join them. The blonde-haired Keith Wills was wearing a Victoria Savages jacket over a South Park T-shirt. "So, what are we having?" he said as he plopped down in the vacant chair next to Cynthia.

The brown-haired Jimmy Parker gave a nervous tug on his blue sweater as he looked around the restaurant expectantly. After a few moments, he grabbed a chair from a table nearby and sat down near Keith who was making a play for a slice of pizza with pepperoni and sausage.

Anita Hanson gestured threateningly with her fork in Keith's direction. "Hands off, you mooch," she said. "We ordered extra because Clare is coming. If there's any left, you can have some after we're finished."

Jimmy perked up at the mere mention of Clare's name. Keith saw his buddy's reaction and put his left hand on Jimmy's shoulder. "Down, tiger, down. Otherwise I'll have to tranquilize you." Keith kidded him. He turned back to Anita and Cynthia. "So where is Miss Harper anyway? She's usually so punctual."

On cue, the bell over the pizza parlor door jangled and Clare walked in. She glanced around and saw her friends seated at a round table towards the back. She zigzagged through the room to join them. "Sorry I'm so late," she apologized and put her book bag under the table.

"Sit here," Jimmy gushed as he jumped up from his seat and offered it to her. "I'll get another." Clare nodded in thanks and was barely settled in when he put another chair for himself right up next to her.

"We ordered for you," Cynthia said dryly as she picked up her slice of vegetarian pizza. "Figured you wouldn't want us waiting on you or anything." She bit firmly into a green pepper.

Anita slid a Diet Coke over to Clare, leaned closer to her best friend and whispered. "Don't mind Cyn. PMS."

Clare tried not to giggle aloud. She could always count on Anita to be in her corner no matter what.

Jo Thomsen returned to the table, saw that Keith was in her chair and popped him firmly on the shoulder. "Wills, didn't your parents teach you not to take a woman's seat?"

"Woman? Where?" Keith shot her a wide grin as he stood up. "You certainly couldn't mean you, Jo." She threw him a dirty glance as she sat. He grabbed another chair and placed it between Cynthia and Jo.

"What'd you play on the jukebox?" Anita asked.

"Just some Indigo Girls and Melissa Etheridge," Jo responded. "The selection is pretty weak. No Ani DeFranco or kd."

"What you picked are cool," Clare said. She knew that Jo's tastes differed a bit from the rest of the group. Anita, for example, would have selected something by Puff Daddy or the Backstreet Boys. Cynthia, from what Clare had seen so far, was into No Doubt and Luscious Jackson. As for herself, Clare pretty much liked most types of music.

Jimmy, hanging on Clare's every movement, sniffed the air once and then again. "Um, Clare," he said hesitantly. "Did you start smoking or something?"

Clare almost fumbled her pizza and felt like all eyes were on her. "Uh, no. Why?"

"You smell a bit, um, smoky," Jimmy explained. He had noticed that her hair didn't have its usual fragrant quality.

"Oh, that." Clare noticed everyone at the table was looking at her. "There was this man..." She formed a lie as quick as she could. "On the VARTA. It was really crowded and he took the vacant seat next to me. He was smoking incessantly and kept blowing the smoke around. It must have got into my clothes and hair is all." She figured she would stop there and hoped that would be enough to satisfy Jimmy's curiosity.

Luckily, Cynthia chimed in. "That's why I don't like using public transportation. Back in Del Oeste, everyone drove everywhere. If you didn't have a car or hang with someone who did, you were socially challenged."

"You grew up in Del Oeste?" Keith asked in more of a statement. "Cool! Dream Girl is from there. Man, is she a babe or what? I've visited dozens of web sites devoted to her." Keith was nearly salivating like a dog with a bone. "She's easily got to be the most downloaded babe on the net."

"Puhleeze," Cynthia waved him off. "I saw her up close in action before we moved here. Dad was giving me a driving lesson on Highway 86 there last August when Dream Girl and her partner, Paradigm, mixed it up with a group of hi-tech thieves. In fact, that new glory hound hero Tag ended up bouncing off the roof of one of the cars less then one hundred feet away from us." ¹ She took another small bite of her pizza then swallowed. "But it's not like they were the first heroes out there. Back when Del Oeste was called San Diego, my father was in college there and he saw Apollo in action a number of times. Dad still considers him one of the greatest heroes ever."

Keith could see that Cynthia was pulling her California is so much superior attitude again and felt obligated to counter it with his own Southern pride. "Well, Victoria has a tradition of super-heroes too! First there was Steel and Magnet in the '70's. They were around for a good long time. Then there was a mystery vigilante woman called Twilight in the late '80's. No one's really sure what happened to her; some say she's just an urban legend. And now we've got this new girl, Lodestone." He gestured at Cynthia with a bread stick that he had just bitten. "She's no Dream Girl but she is pretty cute."

"I've been wondering how they're related," Jo said.

"Who?" Keith asked. "Dream Girl and Lodestone?"

"No, doofus," Jo snapped. "Lodestone and Magnet. The former's costume is exactly like the one worn by the later." She sipped her sweet tea. "Think it's some kind of retro-homage on Lodestone's part? And their powers are almost identical too. Maybe they are actually related to one another. Like a mother-daughter thing or something."

Clare was feeling much more uncomfortable again, and not due to Jimmy's continuous breathing down her neck. She definitely did not want to participate in a discussion about her "other self" with her closest of friends. That was just too weird, even for her.

She needed to change the subject fast, but to what? School? No, too day to day. It would take something more celebrity to get them off on a new tangent. Then, it hit her! "Say, anyone catch this week's Dawson's Creek ?" Clare threw out the question as casually as she could.

Cynthia's eyes sparkled a bit. "Mmm, that James Van Der Beek is fine." she said. Anita nodded in agreement.

"Van Der 'Geek' is more like it!" Keith mocked. "And his Dawson character is so clueless. If I had a major babe like Joey interested in me, I'd be all over that action." He snagged a piece of pepperoni that seemed to be abandon on the pan. "Katie Holmes is the only reason I watch the show. Now she's someone I'd love to have sleep over."

Jo raised an eyebrow at Keith. He still was a jerk in her eyes but one with a pretty good taste in women.

"Keith, is that all you think about?" Anita accused him playfully.

Keith winked at her slyly. "You know it, sister girlfriend."