Hero? Super.
In ‘Falling for You’ by Tom Jolly, the calculus of life and death — not to mention love — is no easy formula. And even the super-est of superheroes sometimes need to risk it all to find it all.
Get a glimpse of the adventure, with this excerpt from Issue 37, Winter 2023.
Falling for You
by Tom Jolly
There were nine of us, all on our hands and knees or bellies, cautiously peering over the unprotected edge of the building’s roof and watching Ralph fail to fly. He even tried to flap his arms, for all the good it did.
Man, I’d just learned his name five minutes ago.
“Well,” I said unnecessarily, while belly-crawling back away from the edge, “he can’t fly.”
Which meant that of the nine remaining people, one of us could. At least, that’s what the (evidently) evil Doctor Dead had written on the sign he’d left behind on top of the building. But he might have been lying.
It was difficult to guess how high we were; the tall structure had no windows, and we hadn’t arrived here by stairs or elevator. We had been teleported here. We had all read the notice posted flat in the middle of the tower when we arrived: “Of the ten of you, one can fly. When you find out who that is, the rest will be saved. Signed, Doctor Dead.”
We all exchanged glances, waiting for someone to announce that they could, in fact, fly. Janine, captured the same time I was, surveyed everyone with a critical eye. Gladys fretted with the edge of her knit sweater; Lucent stood with his arms wrapped around himself, looking lost, despite the bravado of his dyed red hair and piercings. Joshua sat with his face in his hands. And a hulking guy I mentally dubbed Brutus didn’t seem bothered at all, just angry and calculating. Of the other two, a young man sat with his arms around his knees, sobbing, while a slightly older woman watched him from a few feet away. Ralph had seemed manically excited, like he was expecting a miracle.
Nobody announced that they could fly.
Find out what happens next, in Issue 37, Winter 2023!
Tom Jolly is a retired astronautical/electrical engineer. His short stories appear in Analog SF, Daily Science Fiction, and MYTHIC. And they can be heard from wandering storytellers if you buy them an ale on a warm afternoon. Meanwhile, you can follow him on Twitter and find more on his Amazon author page or his website.
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