Week 51 - SuperSUITS

SuperSUITS

Matthew Ryan Fischer

The window broke. The glass shattered. Jacob fell.

It was an easily predicted and fully expected consequence of actions. Jacob was still shocked and a little scared. He knew the glass would break. He knew that was what would happen when propelled at great force towards the window. He knew the glass was not supposed to be that strong or sturdy. Didn’t matter. Didn’t matter what his rational mind knew or didn’t know. It was still scary as fuck – breaking a window, going through the window... falling. Fuck indeed.

If he had jumped, it might have been different. If he were trying to escape, if he knew this might be his only chance for survival, his mind might have rationalized some of it better. But this wasn’t any of that. This was falling. Falling down with his back to the ground. There was no attempt at survival here. This was someone hurtling him towards his death or at the very least a broken back. There was no way his mind was going to be calm and collected in this situation.

Looking up, Jacob watched as the glass caught the sunlight, glimmering and shining in beautiful fashion. A thousand flickering lights. If Jacob hadn’t been falling to his imminent death, he might have paused and taken more time to admire the sight. As it was, he was in no mood for the art of the situation, beautiful or not.

“The suit will save me; the suit will save me...” The thought flashed through his mind. He told himself over and over that it would all be okay, that the suit would save him. That’s what it was supposed to do. That’s what it was there for. He knew it. He had been told and trained. He had seen it in action. He just didn’t believe it quite yet.

He hoped that his belief in the system had nothing to do with the actual effectiveness of it.

The ground was coming up quickly. It was hard to miss a thing like that. Jacob didn’t like this, no not one bit. It felt like he was falling faster now, even if he knew that wasn’t the way things worked. Fear of hitting the ground didn’t make it happen faster. It was only his perception, playing tricks on him. Still, he hated his perceptions and feeling like they were against him.

Jacob had done as he was told to do – tightened his tie… tucked in his shirt… everything was neat and proper. Everything in its place. It all had to be in order. They had drilled that into him. Why was that? He didn’t know. Why make something that only works when it worked perfectly? That seemed like piss-poor design work. If he made it through this and could find a complaint box somewhere, he would definitely lodge a complaint.

The back of his mind acted up and suddenly he wasn’t so sure about how well he had dressed himself this afternoon. He promptly began freaking himself out. What if he had mixed something up? What if he had buttoned a button wrong? What if he had missed--

Impact.

Time seemed to freeze. What about “splat,” he thought? For a moment there was pain. For a moment there was a gasp for air. For a moment he was sure he was dead.

And then that was it. That was all there was to it. Jacob had landed. And he was pretty sure he was still alive.

Jacob lay there. He checked himself and double-checked himself again. It sure didn’t seem like he had a broken back. He wiggled his toes. He clinched his hands. There was movement all-around. Finally Jacob relaxed a little and lay back down and laughed.

“Jesus!” he exclaimed. “That was fucking bonkers.”

“Next time, try to land on your feet.” Jacob heard the voice but didn’t see the speaker. He stretched his neck back and saw the hand reach down to offer him assistance getting up.

“Land on me feet? Are you kidding me?”

The hand that helped Jacob up belonged to Winston Cutter. Or Winston Chase. Or Winston Feelgood. Or whatever dumb name he was calling himself this week. Winston has recruited Jacob. He had taught Jacob how to wear a proper suit and how to look good while doing it. Now Winston was teaching him a whole lot more.

Winston was an agent for the SuperSUITS, the Secret Underground Intelligence Technology, Syndicate. The SuperSUITS were sort of like a government think tank that decided it would be a whole lot cooler if they just became spies themselves. They had the brains to do what they wanted and built the toys they needed. They wore suits. They looked good, they felt good. They exuded confidence and general baddassery.

 “I was fucking falling out a window, down twelve stories. And you want me to think about a thing like that while falling? Land on me feet he says. Want me to do some backflips while I’m at it?”

“Could you?”

“No! No. No I can’t do a backflip midair. Don’t give me that shit. And I suppose you could?”

“What if you had landed on your head?”

“What if I had?”

“The suit will absorb and dissipate the kinetic energy from the fall. Shoes, pants, shirt, jacket. The suit does that. What part of you was exposed?” Winston stared at Jacob like he was a dummy. Sometimes Jacob was. But sometimes Winston was pretty unreasonable too. Winston was a seasoned vet. Jacob was a rookie at best. It was too easy to make Jacob look and feel like a dummy.

Jacob calmed down and thought for a second. He begrudgingly gave the answer that Winston wanted to hear, “My head.”

“Your head.”

“So what if I had hit head first?”

“Good thing you didn’t.”

“Who designed this shit? Are you kidding me? You’re kidding, right? Right? Tell me you’re kidding.”

Winston didn’t respond.

“Not cool. Not cool at all. Maybe try warning a fella first?”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

“So is that it? The basic training? Am I finished?”

“It doesn’t really work like that.”

“All I want to know is when do I become badass?”

“You’re just now finishing basic skills. Basic. You’re trying to jump from 1 to 100 and you can’t even land on your feet yet.”

“Yeah that part wasn’t too much fun.”

Winston glared at him.

“Joke. It was a joke.”

“This isn’t James Bond and you’re not—”

“I’m totally content being the low man. I swear. I just want to make sure I’m on the track.”

“You’re on the track.”

“So how long before we run?”

“You wait until I say you’re ready.”

“Okay, okay, but give me some idea. Next week?”

Winston didn’t answer.

“Next month?”

Winston still didn’t answer.

“Next year? Come on. Be honest. At least give me a hint.”

“You’ll be ready when you’re ready. Don’t be so eager to put yourself in harm’s way.”

“You’re the one that nearly killed me today.”

Winston was silent.

“Not helping?” Jacob asked.

Winston shook his head no.

“What if I ask now? Can we go do something fun? Now? How about now?”

Jacob kept asking, even as Winston walked away.

“How about NOW!!” Jacob screamed. Winston couldn’t help but smile a little, not that Jacob could see it.