Mary pushed Roger’s wheelchair up to the elevator doors at the far end of the bank of elevators. No one else was waiting at this elevator, though the six other sets of doors each had small groups waiting in front of them. This particular elevator, in addition to its “up” and “down” buttons, had a numerical keypad as well as a small intercom speaker. Also, unlike the other sets of elevator doors, a large, imposing camera was mounted above the doors. Mary had been given a code for the keypad during that morning’s phone call as Jaime had been headed off to school.

She paused and took a deep breath. She moved over to the intercom button and looked down at her husband. “Are we ready for this?”

“We can do it, babe. And we’ll do it together.”

Roger raised his fist and Mary returned his fist bump.

“Together,” she answered. It was their couple ritual. They had done it so many times over the years: when they had found out Mary was pregnant, when Jaime had been born, before their wedding, when they had moved into their house, before Roger had gone to Afghanistan, when he’d come back less two legs, and anytime they faced a success to celebrate or a challenge to overcome. Now, it was this, whatever it was going to be.

She keyed in the code. The elevator doors opened. The elevator was empty except for the ocean of memories that spilled out and over Mary like a flood, memories of a simpler time.

The building, above ground, served as the corporate offices of a pet food company. It was a distinct part of the St. Louis skyline. Below ground, however, it served as the Top Secret mid-America headquarters of ASP, the Association of Special People. Mary, as Velocity Girl, had, for about a decade of her life, been a field agent of ASP. ASP operated by the American Federal government as a black op, ASP officially did not exist. ASP was the American government’s way of controlling paranormally powered individuals, such as Velocity GIrl and the other costumed heroes she had run with back in the day. She had used this elevator countless times. It looked just the same inside with its dark, fake wood paneling. 

She pushed Roger’s wheelchair inside. The doors closed behind them. Mary didn’t turn them around because she knew that when the elevator reached its destination, doors on the opposite side of the elevator would open, making the back the front and the front the back. There were no buttons to push. The elevator knew where it was going.

“Thanks for coming with me,” she said.

“Anytime, babe.” Roger answered.

*******

Walter was standing in front of a different locker, not his hallway locker, but his P.E. locker. Principal Persimmons had let him go on about his day. The administrator had been distracted by other things.

When the big, burly janitor had used the strange hand vac device to suck up all the pink dust, the principal had become preoccupied with how strange the janitor seemed and with how much the janitor seemed to know about the pink dust. The janitor also didn’t have a proper ID badge either on a lanyard or clipped to his shirt to authorize him to be on campus. Although the janitor had assured the principal that he was just a substitute janitor and that the regular janitor would be back soon, the students watching in the halls could see Principal Persimmons’s suspicion rise when the supposed substitute janitor could name neither the school’s regular janitor for whom he was substituting, nor the name of the outsourcing company that supplied the school with janitors. The principal had requested that the janitor accompany him to his office to call the outsourcing company. The strange, huge janitor had seemed frustrated by this.

“Hey, Walter, what was that pink stuff in your locker?”

Oh, no! Not them! Not now! He was in enough trouble. His parents were going to be told that he had drugs in his locker at school. He had lost the talking pink rabbit that was going to make him rich and famous. Now, Jeremy and his gang of bullies were going to pick on him.

“Pink fairy dust, most likely,” said one of Jeremy’s sycophants.

The guys all laughed. They were all surrounding Walter now. There was nowhere to run.

“You’re running late, Walter,” Jeremy chided.

It was true. The other guys were all dressed out. Most of the class had already left the locker room and was in the gym. Because of the incident in the hallway, Walter had come to P.E. late.

“Let’s help him hurry and dress out, guys.”

Walter grabbed the front of Walter’s shirt with one hand. He was larger than Walter and backed Walter against the open doorway of his P.E. locker. He reached around Walter’s waist. HIs hand found the elastic band of Walter’s underwear and it was wedgie time.

“That underwear doesn’t fit right, Walter. You better look in your locker for another pair.”

The larger youth shoved Walter into his own locker, reminding Walter that adolescence had not yet gifted him with a growth spurt. Perhaps, it never would. He was still small enough to fit inside a locker. Damn it!

One of the sycophant toadies that were always hanging on Jeremy’s every word slammed the locker door in Walter’s face. Desperately, Walter fumbled in the dark to try to open the locker from the inside, but he was too late.

“Here!” One of the bullies produced his own padlock and managed to get it on the outside of Walter’s locker door. Click!

Walter could hear the P.E. teacher’s voice come from the doorway to the locker room. “Hey, get out here, gentlemen! Class is starting without you. Nobody wants to do extra laps, do they?”

“We’re coming, coach!” The thuggish group of youths laughed and playfully shoved each other as Walter heard them make their way out into the gym.

For a moment, Walter thought about yelling out to the P.E. teacher coach for help, while he was still in hearing distance. He thought that would make him look even more weak, however.

“Don’t be sad,” said a voice that sounded like it was near the floor. Walter knew that voice. It was the voice of the talking pink rabbit. Walter didn’t know exactly how, but surely having a talking pink rabbit would make him rich and famous. After it had run from the strange janitor’s weird hand vac device, Walter wasn’t sure he’d ever see it again. He had thought it would be unfair if someone else became its friend and then became rich and famous.

Suddenly, Walter heard the thunk of a padlock dropping and hitting the hard floor. Then Walter’s locker door slowly opened. Looking up at him, next to the fallen lock, in a little pile of freshly generated pink dust, was the little pink bunny. He thought it was a little weird how the combination padlock on the floor in the pink dust wasn’t just open. The shape of the metal was warped somehow, as if the lock had melted and then become solid again.

“How’d you do that?”

“I can do all kinds of wonderful things, kid. I can make all your dreams come true. What say we start with a little dream of revenge?”

Walter just nodded.