Excerpt: Icarus: The Adventures of a Self-Proclaimed Supervillain

“Yeah?” he called towards the door. “What is it?”

Jan Abels, his foster mother, opened the door and leaned in. Her hand was over the receiver end of a phone and her face looked a little strained. Her mouth worked for a while, but she didn’t really say anything.

Icarus rolled his eyes. “Yeah? What is it?”

“It’s Jean. She wants to talk to you.”

Icarus blinked suddenly, and then motioned to have the phone brought over to him. His mother darted into his room, stepping carefully over the clothes that were littered on the ground, and then put the phone into his hands. As soon as she had done that, she practically ran out the door and slammed it shut. Icarus snorted in amusement.

“Yeah?” he asked, putting the phone up to his ear. “What’s up, Jean?”

“Hey, kid,” said the crackly voice over the phone’s speaker, “you okay?”

“Well, I’m paralyzed from the waist down and in a wheelchair, but other than that, yeah, I’d say I’m living. Are you just calling to check up on me?”

He could hear the smile in the other girl’s voice. “No, not exactly.”

“That’s what I thought. What’s up?”

“I was just calling to relay a message someone wanted me to give you-a guy that said his name was Casey, or as you would know him…” there was a pause, and then the sound of speaking in the background. Jean came back to the phone with very audible chuckles in her voice, “the boy you blew a six inch wide hole into on your second day of official training.”

“Casey?” asked Icarus. “Wait, what-what does he want?”

“He says that he’s going to take you up on your offer that you presented to him a couple days ago, if it still stands.”

Icarus pursed his lips. “I… well, there’s the whole wheelchair thing, but I guess I could try and get around it… I’ll probably have to have a surgery to get this inhibitor chip out of my femur…”

“He says that he has a guy for both of those things.”

“Really?” now Icarus was really, really intrigued. He smiled and capped his black marker before putting it down on the table and looking over his choice of colors. “Do you mind keeping him busy for me for three or four days, while I get my affairs in order?”

“As long as the kid can pay for his own food… hey, wait just a sec.” Jean stepped away from the phone, this time obviously not bothering to cover up the receiver on her end. “Hey, kid, you got enough money to live on McDonalds for a few days?!” She came back to the phone. “He says yes. I guess I’m in.”

“That’s awesome, Jean. I’ll meet you at your house in a few days.”

“I’ll be waiting, kid,” said Jean with a smile. “Give me a heads up, first, okay?”

Icarus smirked. “Oh, trust me. You’ll know when I’m coming.”

Jean laughed. “If you say so.”

And then she hung up the phone.

Icarus pressed the ‘end’ button and then put the phone down on his desk, very obviously pleased with himself. He looked over his choice of marker colors again, absently throwing his right edge to the side along with the ruler. Twiddling his fingers between the red and the yellow, he finally selected the yellow marker, uncapped it, and then added a large dash of yellow to the entire mix of colors, especially the part he hadn’t colored in. It was hard to see amongst all of the grays and blacks, but it stood out just in its difference from the blacks and whites.

Capping the marker and putting it back down on the table, Icarus sighed and leaned back in his wheelchair, running his palms along the smooth, shiny, and cold metal at the wheels. He could feel his brain churning with all of the possibilities that surrounded him, all of the things that he could get done now that he had Casey, all of the things that could happen when they were together.

He’d just have to put his affairs in order, like he had said to Jean.

Icarus smirked and pulled out a pen and paper. This was going to be fun.