SuperDim

I'm on a superhero kick and I thought I'd do something fun.  Like, what if it's a superhero and villain locked into conflict, except they're both criminals, they're just incredibly petty little goblins? And also they are soulmates.

“Planetarium,” Hammer stressed. His tone tells her that he thinks she’s an idiot. He waves a finger around his ear to drive the point home. “Planet? And then a noun form that tells us it’s a place associated with the first part of the word.” She can see through his domino mask that he’s rolling his eyes. “Duh.” He cocks his hip, one gloved hand dug into his pocket.

'Why is he even wearing a mask? Everyone knows who he is. I hate him so much I'm going to die.'

“You are so stupid,” Ji-Min sobs. She grits her teeth. There’s actual tears in her eyes. She lunges forward to club Hammer on his stupid head. He dodges, but the hood covering his hair is dislodged.

“Hey!” Hammer protests. He dodges her next swipe too and scrunches up his nose petulantly. “I’m going to steal Jupiter, and there's nothing you can do to stop me, hero!” He bolts down the service hallway. “Why are you so obsessed with me, anyway?"

For a moment, she is frozen in horror. That's it? That's his plan? He thinks he can find and steal Jupiter?

Ji-Min screams. The sound echoes through the Adler Planetarium and out into the greater Chicago area. The sound stuns him, sending him crashing against the wall. “I hate you!”

Hammer stumbles on.

Earlier that day

Ji-Min burrowed further into the sofa, pressing her whole body against the cushions. She flicked tabs on her phone. One of her earbuds fell out. She frowned at it, but let it roll away. A current pop star was still bouncing away in her left ear, convinced that it was true love this time, not like all the times before. The app pulled up a video of that one guy making something with chocolate. Ji-Min paused on it, frowning at the screen.

She didn’t actually like these videos, per se. But she watched without blinking. She needed to know what it was.

47 seconds in, she found out that it was a chandelier. The chocolate man held it up to his face and grinned. It was so wholesome.

“Boo,” she said resentfully. She swiped to the next video.

“Hey everyone,” said a hatefully familiar voice.

Ji-Min’s entire body went stiff.

The camera pulled back to show more of the despicably square-jawed underwear model that she hated more than anyone else in this world. He was flashing a slightly crooked smile at the camera. The screen bobbed a little as he moved. “Good news, your boy is back out of prison!” He did a little shimmy.

Someone in the background gasped. He must have heard because he turned to the side and gave a thumbs up. There was a thrilled little scream.

Ji-Min clenched her free hand into a fist.

“Of course, you know I have some great stuff in the works.” He started walking, showing that the background was indeed the maximum security penitentiary.

Ji-Min scowled. She opened up a second window to search when his prison term was supposed to end. Surely he wasn’t meant to be out yet.

“Super excited to share with you guys.” He ruffled his hair. “So, uh, yeah, just keep your eyes out.” He pulled his hand out of his hair to make it into the asinine fist that was his logo, thumb tucked exactly where it should be if you want a broken thumb.

Ji-Min sat up.

The penitentiary blew up. The force of it washed over Hammer, ruffling his hair. There was one millisecond left of his cheeky grin and then the video cut off.

Ji-Min put her thumb on the screen before the app could switch over to the next trending video. Grimly, she opened up the details. The timestamp was 8 minutes ago. Knowing him, that meant the actual explosion had been a few minutes prior and he’d uploaded the video from the getaway car. Hammer had captioned the video with two fire emojis and a dynamite. She caught sight of the first comments and actually bared her teeth. The comment section was full of puerile jokes about hammering.

“Disgusting,” she said. She closed the app and her eyes. She took a deep breath, then two more, counting on the inhale and exhale. When her heart rate had gone down a little she sat up properly, both feet on the floor. She used her knee to brace her left hand and opened up an incognito tab. Then she opened the same app and signed in using Hammer’s information. She held her breath, wondering if this was going to be the time that he’d been leant half a brain cell and used it to change his password.

It logged in.

“Brilliant.” Ji-Min fisted her right hand in her hair and opened up Hammer’s messages. She felt herself hyper focus on the task, absorbing every asinine thing that Hammer had sent since getting out of prison. The first conversation that she checks is the jackpot- Sunspot actually has her account under a decent fake name, but context is enough for Ji-Min to recognize that Hammer is actively messaging his main henchwoman. She’s left him a getaway car- a yellow Mazda.

“Where are you going?” Ji-Min hums to herself. She narrowed her eyes and then starts checking back through the rest of his account. Most of his contacts haven’t gotten more than a “bitch I’m freeeeeeee!” with a selfie, but a couple of them could be leads.

The last vestiges of sunlight flickered through her living room in a series of shadows while she read. She didn’t move until the door downstairs made that click of a key turning. Ji-Min glanced over to the door and gave a stretch as she switched the tab back to her own account.

A few seconds later, her little sister opened the door.

“Hey,” she said. The door slammed shut behind her.

“Hi.” Ji-Min leaned back on the sofa and stuffed her phone in the pocket of her hoodie. “Ah, shit. I didn’t start dinner. Want me to?”

Ari bit her lip and her eyes went up in thought. She shrugged off and then tossed her black backpack. It hit the edge of the sofa with a thunk. “Not really time unless it’s really fast, I have to go to practice in an hour.” She shucked her shoes. “I have to get my clothes-”

“I moved them to the dryer.” Ji-Min watched Ari cross the room. “Should be done.”

Ari let out a breath that ruffled her hair. “Thank you,” she said with feeling. “Cool. Wanna just… I don’t know, we could do pizza rolls?”

“That sounds good to me.” Ji-Min finally got up. She knelt in front of the refrigerator to check the lower section. “We have a full bag.” She withdrew it triumphantly and turned it around to check the flavor. Pepperoni. “I’ll get that started.”

“Gross, I love it.” Ari walked into the back hallway. A moment later Ji-Min could hear the dryer being opened. There was a beep and then the rumble of the machine starting again. “Gym tomorrow morning?”

Ji-Min paused, thinking it over. “Tentatively yes,” she said, punching in the preheat information to the oven and tossing the pizza rolls onto the counter. “I might be out pretty late.”

“Fun,” Ari said in a bland voice. A drawer slides open in the other room.

Ji-Min glanced at the sound and then back to her phone. She leaned against the wall and opened up the incognito tab again. The first part of a draft video reflected light back onto her face. Hammer’s horrible smug face is the main image, below a caption in comic sans with the moon and stars. She opens up the messages with Sunspot’s decoy account again, checking on what the other woman has sent Hammer.

Yeah. Chicago. He’s going to Chicago.

Fuck. That was a two hour drive.

“Can we do the afternoon?” Ji-Min checks. She pulls her fingers through her hair again and looks up at the ceiling. Her mask and gloves… They should still be in her bag, but the catsuit might be at the bottom of the laundry basket. Fuck, no time for that. Yoga pants it is. What else did she need to figure out before she left? Her favorite nightstick should still be in the trunk, but she’d have to check.

“Need to do laundry?” Ari asks. She snorts. “Yeah, fine, but I only have a two hour timespot free. So you can’t be late.”

Ji-Min pulls open the pizza rolls and dumps the entire bag onto a metal tray. “No problem.” The pizza rolls make a cacophony of clunks as she spreads them apart. “Can you just toss my whole basket in the washer?”

“Do it yourself,” Ari calls back. A drawer slams shut in her room.

“Brat!” Ji-Min sticks her tongue out. It doesn’t matter that Ari can’t see it. It’s the principle of the thing. “Do you want me to wash the dishes or not?”

‘What do I have in the car for gas? Do I have time to get out cash?’

There’s a moment of silence. Somehow, the sound of the washer starting comes across as sullen.

“Thanks.”