Chum

There’s two people in the room with me, both on the opposite side – a clerk, a pretty older woman with dark skin and hair that looks a bit like steel wool, and the officer, who I think is bald but I can’t tell underneath his cap. I know I’m not in trouble but I still can’t help but feel like this is an interrogation, and not an interview, because I saw that the officer had something in his holster when he entered the room and I’m not sure if it’s a gun or a taser but I don’t like that there’s anything there at all. My mom always told me that you should always trust police officers because they’re there to help but one of my friends got arrested for smoking even though weed’s been legal for like two years now so I’m not really sure who to trust, even though I’d never smoke weed because it’s gross.

My fingers have been rolling along the table in tapa-tapa-taps, except for my thumb, which is folded under my palm. And then unfolded, because it’s not comfortable there. Actually, I can’t decide if it’s comfortable or not so I keep folding and unfolding it while the officer looks down at me. He shuffles some papers around. “Samantha Small, date of birth April 16th, 2009. Parents are… Rachel and Benjamin Small. Student of… Tacony Academy Charter High School. Activation event on file is… boating accident, right?” The officer asks. I wrinkle my nose. I don’t like thinking about it.

“Yeah, I was out fishing with my grandpa and I think a really big, angry fish caught my line because I got yanked out, or maybe a rock caught it. But I got caught under the boat, and. Uh, I don’t like talking about it,” I answer. Instead of continuing with narrating the worst day of my life for the benefit of a stranger I’m scared of, I just lift up the side of my t-shirt close to my ribs, where an array of thick, bumpy white lines cut up through my lower right side of my torso, like, from my hips all the way up. From the propeller. “Do I have to keep talking about it? It was like three weeks ago. Maybe a month.”

“No, we’re just making sure everything we have on file is correct. You don’t have to keep talking about it,” he says, and smiles, and I try to feel less nervous but it’s not really something you have control over. I tap my fingers. “Can you tell me about your powers, Mrs. Small?”

“Please, call me “Sam”. Mrs. Small is my mom and all my friends call me Sam,” I reply.

“Does that make us friends?” he says, in what I think is a joke, but his face doesn’t change, so I can’t really tell. I grab my wrist so that I stop drumming on the table, and my t-shirt falls back down onto my shorts.

“Only if you’re not going to arrest me,” I blurt out.

“Well, you haven’t done anything wrong yet, so hopefully we can keep that streak going. Mind telling me about your powers, Sam?” he asks again. There’s a small fan installed in the ceiling in the corner of the room, and every so often it blows a streak of hair into my face, so I have to push it back and try tucking it behind my ear, which is annoying.

I reach up with my free hand, that’s my right one, and I grab my upper lip and pull it up to bare my teeth. They’re still the same as they were since that day, and I pull my tongue back so it doesn't scrape unpleasantly against the sharp tips. “I got shark teeth,” I tell him, before dropping my lip and wiping my fingers off on my shorts.

“I can see that.”

“And a shark bite too. And my teeth are really hard, I accidentally bit through a couple of our spoons without chipping anything. They’re kind of numb? Like, it doesn’t hurt if I bite something really hard,” I answer him, my nostrils twitching. “I didn’t get any gills though, which would’ve been cool. I can’t breathe underwater. But I think I can swallow salt water, but that’s kind of a sh- kind of a poopy superpower so you don’t need to write that one down. Don’t write that one down, please?” I say that one more to the clerk than the officer. She smiles kindly at me and gives me a thumbs up, tapping the backspace key a couple of times. I can’t see the keyboard from here, but I know what someone tapping the backspace key sounds like.

Officer Gold, that’s his name, is taking notes on his notepad, on his clipboard. “Enhanced jaw strength… durable enamel…” I hear him mumbling to himself as he writes. “Is that it, Sam? Just the biting?”

“No. I mean, my teeth fall out sometimes now, which is also gross.” I say, honestly, my knees bumping up and down under the table. “But then they’re back like an hour or two later, so I think I’ve been growing new ones. I think my parents will be happy that I can’t get cavities anymore. We’ll save a lot of money on dentist fees,” I try to joke. The room feels austere – that’s a word my mom taught me – and Officer Gold’s chuckling feels fake. He’s about to open his mouth, I can tell, but I have more to say so I start talking a little louder to talk over him before he can say something. “Oh, I can smell blood, too. Also like a shark, I think, which is cool but it’s also kinda gross. Like, if there’s blood nearby and it hasn’t dried up I can just sort of tell where it is, like there’s a compass in my head? I can’t see it. I don’t really know how else to explain it. It’s not really smell either. It’s, um…”

I struggle to come up with a way to explain it. “It’s like a new sense?” Officer Gold suggests.

“Yeah! It’s like a new sense. I think it’s like trying to explain how smelling works to someone who can’t smell. I just sort of know where it is. And if someone’s bleeding, like, if they’re bleeding right now, and it’s still coming out and hasn’t crusted up, I can tell where they are. Like, I can smell all their veins and their heart. And their bones? Which I think is from the bone marrow, I looked that up, but that feels wrong, I didn’t know bones make blood,” I say, sticking my tongue out. “That’s gross.”

“You’ve sure got a lot of opinions on what’s gross, don’t you?” Officer Gold jokes. He chuckles. I squint at him, trying to look intimidating, but he just laughs a little harder so I don’t think it worked.

“I’m a very opinionated person. My grandpa says that,” I answer, but that makes him laugh harder and I can feel the blood rushing to my face. Not in a smelling-the-blood way, just an embarrassment way. I feel embarrassed, I think, that’s what it is. “What! I am.”

“No, no, it’s nothing, you just remind me of my daughter.” He says, leaning a little bit back in his chair. “She’s a lot like you. But without the powers.”

“Yeah, I think she should hope that because the whole thing really hurt. I had to spend like two days in the hospital and get an IV and everything. And I really don’t like needles. Could go my whole life without seeing another needle. That’d be great. Do other superheroes need to get needles, or are there special things for that? Like, special doctors or medicines or something? I don’t even have ear piercings even though all my friends do,” I ask.

“I couldn’t tell you. I’m not a superhero,” Officer Gold answers, which I’m not at all satisfied with. “But I think, you’re, what, 14? I’m afraid to say you’ve probably got at least a couple more vaccines ahead of you, Sam.”

I slump, running my hand through my hair to pull it back behind my head, and then I do a big dramatic sigh, the kind that bothers my parents. “Fine. Whatever,” I say, brushing my hair out from my face again. “I don’t think I have anything else. Just the teeth and the blood stuff. “Do you need anything else? I know if someone wants to join the FBI or something they have to interview all that person’s friends and family. Do you need my friends’ phone numbers?” I ask, already reaching down to pull out my phone.

Officer Gold waves me off. “No, that’s it. We’ve already conducted our phone interviews with your parents, and they’ve given their sign off. If your JLUMA is approved, you’ll receive it in the mail in 3-5 business days,” he says, getting up from his side of the table and pushing his chair in so it squeaks on the tile floor. I try not to wince at it, and fail.

“If it’s approved? You mean I could’ve done all this whole thing and it still might get, uh, not approved?” I ask, a little flabbergasted. I stare at my fingertips, my nails all pink and shiny. “That’s so annoying.”

“No, well… Yes, there’s a possibility that your license may not be approved, but I think, personally, your chances are pretty good. We don’t need to make you sign any documents promising not to become a supervillain or whatever because that’s already illegal, so we trust you not to do that. And, you know, your parents told us all about you, and I think you’re going to be fine. Nothing to worry about,”

My face still feels hot from what I can only assume is a combination of embarrassment and annoyance. I’m sure my dad just loved the opportunity to make me sound lame by gushing about me to a police officer. “Can I ask what they told you? I need to know how mad at my parents I’m about to get.”

“You’re good at soccer, you have a lot of friends, and your mom told me you did so well at your bat mitzvah. And they assured me you’re too busy with stuff after school to get into any funny business, and even if you could you wouldn’t hurt a fly. Now, you’re not going to make a liar out of your parents, are you, Sam?”

A noise that sounds like a dying whale escapes my lungs. “Ugh. Why did she say that? I’m going to strangle them,” I mumble before remembering that I’m in a room with a police officer. He raises an eyebrow, and I do not address it, looking at his shirt instead of his face. “No, Officer. I am not going to make a liar out of my parents. Am I free to get up?”

“Yeah, you’re good. And it’s ‘Bill’, not Officer. Since we’re on a first name basis and all that,” he says. If anything, that makes me trust him significantly less. I refuse to call him Bill, not even in my head, even as I get up and push my chair in. Unlike Officer Gold, I make sure to lift my chair up a little so it doesn’t squeak against the dirty tile floor. “Do you need a ride home?”

I’m definitely not letting a police officer drive me home. Not because they’re a police officer, but because my mom always told me to never let strangers drive you home, and she’s also told me to trust police officers but she talks about strangers being dangerous significantly more so that’s the side I’m taking on this one. The fact that I already don’t like him is not coloring my decision. I’m already pulling my phone out. “No thanks, I can walk home. It’s like, ten minutes from here. Once I get my license, does that mean I can go out and start biting people? Not that I plan to do that, I’m just wondering.”

“No,” he starts, scratching the back of his head. The clerk waves at me, and I wave at her back and smile at her. I like her a lot more than the officer. I am sure even if she did most of the talking I would still like her. She doesn’t get up from her chair, so I guess she has more typing to do. “The Juvenile LUMA does not give you free reign to go trying to beat up robbers because we don’t want to encourage kids to put themselves in danger.”

“Unless they work for the government,” I interrupt as we walk.

“Right, unless they work for the government,” he continues, laughing. “But I think even the Young Defenders have an age requirement, Sam. What the license means is that should you get in a situation requiring it, you can use your powers without fear of getting in trouble so long as you do so in the public interest. Do you know what that means?”

He walks me through the police station, over through the lobby. I pass by other officers and people working, and almost all of them are significantly taller than me, which is annoying because I just got my growth spurt and I’m the tallest of my friends but here I feel short again. “Like, picking up trash and stuff. Or, you know, just on the off chance that someone tries to supervillain my school I can bite them and if I bite their fingers off they can’t sue me for it. If I didn’t have a license, they might be able to sue me or something. Or I might get arrested. Right? Do I have that right?” I ask. He opens the front door for me, and I step out onto the sidewalk.

“Right, if you didn’t have a license and you tried to use your powers in self defense, you might get in trouble. Like if you had a gun you were carrying illegally, even if your life is in danger you might get in trouble just having it. And if you shoot someone with it, you’d get in more trouble compared to if you had a license to carry that gun. Does that make sense, Sam?”

I shrug. “It makes sense but I think it’s kind of stupid. It’s not like I can get rid of this gun. They don’t have anything that can undo superpowers yet, right?”

I can see him getting ready to reach for my hair, likely for an encouraging tousle. I step away before he even has the opportunity, taking two steps back. My legs are really long, so it’s not very hard, and his hand stays right where it should be by his belt. “No, I don’t think they do. And between you and me, I think it’s a little silly too, but that’s the law, and they just pay me to enforce the law. If you want to change it, maybe you could become a senator?”

See, that makes me laugh. A puff of air squeezes out from the corner of my lips. “Yeah, that’s not happening. I’m not some kind of poindexter who can focus on books long enough to write a law.”

Officer Gold shrugs his shoulders and opens the front door, clearly also trying to escape the situation like I am. “Well, who knows. A supe just got elected to City Council. Maybe you’ll be the first superhuman senator if you stay in school and focus on your studies?”

I look around, away from the police officer. Across the street are just acres of rowhouses, brown and red brick the most familiar color in the world. The car dealership next door looks like the sleaziest place in the neighborhood, sleazier than the bars and the alleys. The post office is just the post office. “I’ll pass.”

“I hope you do.” Officer Gold says, letting the door shut behind him.

PERKS Assessment: Samantha Small

I. Power Classification

Gigant: Shark-Like Biology.

Code: G4/S/P/T

Rationale: Samantha Small displays enhanced bite force and constantly regrowing, serrated teeth akin to a shark. Classified under the Gigant category, she is assigned a 4 for her ability to damage small metal objects such as cutlery. This ability is personal (S) and physical (P), and is limited to touch range (T).

Brain: Blood Sense.

Code: B3/SON/P/U

Rationale: Samantha’s “Blood Sense” ability falls under the Brain category. This allows her to sense the approximate location of freshly spilled blood and visualize the vascular system of bleeding individuals. While the full extent and exact range of this ability is still unclear, it is estimated to be around a 3 due to its potential strategic value. It is a personal (S), other (O), and non-sentient (N) ability, that is physical (P) in nature, with an undefined range (U) due to uncertainty of its limits.

Gigant: Regenerative Ability.

Code: G?/S/P/U

Rationale: There is speculation about Samantha’s potential regenerative ability, following the unexpected speed of her recovery from injury. She has mentioned only requiring two days in the hospital to heal from a serious injury involving disembowelment, and the only sign of damage is scarring along her right flank. She seems unaware of the speed of her recovery. It is tentatively placed in the Gigant category with an unknown rank (?) due to insufficient evidence, but at least 3 is likely. It is a personal (S) and physical (P) ability, with an undefined range (U) until further observation can ascertain its limits.

II. Power Ranking

Samantha’s abilities present moderate capability, from the physical alteration of her dentition to the detection of fresh blood. Each power was evaluated based on the potential for impact, defense, and replication. Further evaluation is required to accurately determine the power ranking of her potential regenerative ability.

III. Control Rating

Control is ranked at 7/10. Samantha appears to have good control over her biting and blood sense abilities, though the extent of her control over the potential regenerative ability is yet to be determined. It is unclear if her blood sense can be “turned off”, or if it would even need to be in order to prevent potential sensory overload.

IV. Hostility Rating

Hostility is ranked at 0/10. Samantha does not display any antagonistic behavior. Her interview and background check indicate a stable upbringing, participation in extracurricular activities, and a developed support network. She has no history of criminal activity.

V. Collateral Damage

Potential Collateral damage potential is ranked at 1/10. Samantha’s powers seem to possess little potential for significant property damage or loss of life under normal circumstances.

VI. Overall Threat Level

Given Samantha’s power ranking, control, low hostility, and minimal collateral damage potential, Samantha is assigned an overall threat level of 2/10. Her abilities, while noteworthy, do not pose substantial threat under current circumstances.

Notes:

Fidgety behavior and tendency to talk excessively, though not unusual for a teenager, may indicate a degree of nervousness or anxiety. Further psychological evaluation recommended.

Samantha seems unaware of her potential regenerative ability. Further observation and testing required to confirm the presence and extent of this ability.

This PERKS Assessment is to be updated as further information is gathered and understood. Unauthorized dissemination of this document may result in penalty under the U.S. Code, Title 18, Section 798.

Interviewing Officer: William H. Gold

Date: August 1st, 2023

Civilian Clerk: Amber Peterson

Date: August 1st, 2023

Approved: Provisional JLUMA (Juvenile License to Utilize Metahuman Abilities) granted as of August 2nd, 2023.

Parental Consent: Benjamin Small, Rachel Small.

It’s just black. The only thing around me is a solid, swallowing black, like in my attic with the lights off and a blanket over the window. I can’t see anything because my eyes are shut, soaked with salt water and screaming in pain. I try to break the surface of the water but there’s something heavy above me, too heavy to move, and I swallow a lungful of seawater and try to cough it back up. It’s the worst agony I can think of, and one time I broke my arm during a soccer game, and that was really bad too, but that’s nothing compared to this. I should be thinking, I know in comics and movies and stuff that whenever the main character is in a bad situation they can just stop and think about it and time slows down in their head until they’re fine and the situation is fixed.

They always make it look so easy.

There’s no thinking that can be done and time is going so much faster than it should. The only thing inside of me is the kind of raw panic I imagine bait feels whenever I put them on a hook to fish with – I feel like a tiny little minnow. I can’t surface because the boat is above me. I can at least make that connection. Maybe if I push hard enough I can just push the boat out of the way, or try to get around it, but all I can really do, the only thing I can really do, is try to cough up seawater, burning and salt in my lungs. I can’t control which pipe it’s going down. I can’t control my arms, or my flailing. The situation is fucked beyond repair. I think I’m allowed to say that now.

I feel the boat shift above me and then there’s something else. My hand jerks back from a sharp pain across my forearm, and then I see sunlight for only a moment, or the impression of light, anyway. My eyes are still shut because they burn too, I just think that the boat has moved off from me, but then there’s something searing across my side and my stomach feels sick. The pain intensifies – that means it gets worse.

It gets worse.

It gets even worse.

It gets so much worse than I can even imagine.

I wish I could pass out. I know some people pass out when they get blood drawn, I think my dad is like that. I hope I don’t die right now, because thinking about my parents being sad at my funeral makes me sad, but also, I hope I do die, because if I have to live one more second with this kind of pain I’m going to kill myself, myself. I’m trying to describe it and the only thing I can come up with is that it’s like that one time I got burnt by the brownie pan when I reached over and my wrist touched the edge and it hadn’t cooled down, but so much more intense than that.

I don’t even know why it hurts. I feel air across my face and spit out a lungful of seawater but it doesn’t help because I feel woozy. The air is bitter and when I try to crack my eyes open the water is so much more brown than it was before, and I know that’s not just New Jersey sludge. I can only make out the faintest shape of my grandpa, and that makes me feel so much worse, because I can hear him yelling and thinking about him at my funeral makes me even sadder. I’d start crying if my body wasn’t one hundred percent focused on making sure I’m not dead, which meant there was no time for baby stuff like that.

I notice that my insides are hanging out into the ocean, exactly where they shouldn’t be, and now I understand why it hurts. I’ve connected the dots. The propeller probably gutted me like a fish.

I take a moment to feel proud of my deductive abilities – that’s another term my mom taught me. Deductive abilities. Deduction. That’s what a detective does. I am swallowed up by the blackness.