The Awakening by Michael Carroll Page A

up?”
    “Maybe they decided to retire.”
    “Nah…How could you give up something like that? You know what my wife thinks? She thinks that they never really existed. She says that it was all a stunt rigged by the government to make all the crooks think that there was more to worry about than the cops. I say to her, ‘Bridget, if they didn’t exist, then I was flattened under a thousand tons of concrete and steel, and I’ve been imagining the past sixteen years.’” He laughed.
    “If someone was making it all up,” Colin said, “why would they stop?”
    Gene nodded. “Good point. Good point.”
    “Do you know what happened to Paragon?”
    “Oh, that guy. Bridget calls him ‘the creepy one,’ ’cause of how he used to just sort of skulk around in the shadows. I guess he went the same way as the others, whatever that was.”
    “It’s just that I’ve been thinking about him a lot…If all the superhumans died or just disappeared, then what about their secret identities? Wouldn’t there be people thinking, ‘I haven’t seen Uncle Pete since the day all the heroes disappeared’?”
    “You’re a smart kid, Colin.”
    “Thanks.”
    “You doing OK in school?”
    “About average.”
    “Got any brothers or sisters?”
    “There’s just me.” Colin decided to switch the conversation away from himself. “What about you? Any children?”
    “We have a son in medical college. He’s getting married after he graduates. A real nice girl, she is. I have to tell you, I’m real proud of him. I should have done something like that, you know? Something to help people.”
    “My dad’s a paramedic,” Colin said.
    “Yeah?” Gene steered the car onto the freeway’s exit ramp. “Good work, that. What about you? Are you going to follow in your father’s footsteps?”
    “I hope so.” Colin couldn’t help wondering where his parents were now, whether he’d ever see them again.
    The task ahead of him seemed impossible.
    A week ago all I had to worry about was getting my homework done and remembering when it was my turn to peel the potatoes.
    His mouth was suddenly dry; Colin felt as though he were trying to swallow sand.
    Now I’m on my own in God-knows-where and my parents and my best friend have been taken hostage. What if they’re already dead?
    “Hey,” Gene said. “You OK, Colin?”
    Colin brushed the tears away from his eyes. “Yeah, I’m OK. Allergies.”
    “Uh-huh…You sure you don’t want to talk about what’s going on?”
    “I wish I could. But…it’s complicated. Sorry.”
    “No, no, that’s fine. We’re here to make things easier for young people like yourself, not to make things harder! You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.” Without pausing, Gene changed the subject: “It’ll take us about thirty minutes to get to the shelter. Traffic is crazy downtown. It’s been getting worse the past few years.” They turned right into a residential area, where they made another complicated series of turns.
    Colin was looking out of the window. “Some of these houses are huge!”
    “Yeah, this is what you might call an upmarket area. I have to tell you, Colin, the shelter is not in the best part of town. It can be a pretty rough area. Fact is, I’m going to park half a mile or so from the shelter. You don’t mind walking the rest of the way?”
    “No. Listen, thanks for this. I can’t pay you back.”
    “You don’t owe me anything. We’re here to help. I mean, if my boy was in trouble, I’d like to think that there would be someone he could turn to for help.”
    Eventually, Gene steered the car into the parking lot of a small mall, found a spot and shut off the engine. “OK…Colin, you ever spend the night in a shelter before?”
    “No.”
    “Right. There’s a few things you should know. You’re about twelve or thirteen, right? Well, most of the other kids are fifteen, sixteen, some are older. They can be pretty tough. When we get there, I’m going to