Free Used to Be: The Kid Rapscallion Story by Mark Bousquet Page B

room, she revealed to me that she did this as an attempt to earn a performers’ contract with one of the local casinos. I do not consider her a threat, and the Revolutionaries agree with this assessment.”
    When I pressed Kid Rapscallion on further details, he insisted that he had other hospitals to visit, but that he would provide me with further details later this week. Stay tuned to the Daily Rebel for future details about Kid’s first major victory since arriving from San Francisco.”

PART
THREE
    2015
     
    1
     
    I can’t sleep.
    Being back in Vegas, seeing Nancy, and thinking of everything that went down here during my three years as the city’s hero has unsettled me more than I thought it would. I hate being back. I told myself I could go back whenever I wanted to, but I’m as good at convincing myself I wasn't worried about coming back as I was at believing I wasn’t an addict.
    I try to turn in early because time always passes faster when you’re old cold, but after an hour of tossing and turning and it still only being 10:47, I figure I might as well get up and go do something.
    I decide to work out, which I know is a terrible idea, but maybe if I huff and puff for 30 minutes I’ll tire myself out enough to pass out in lieu of falling asleep. What I really want to do is snort a big bag of coke and drift away to oblivion, but without my superpowers, cocaine affects my physiology just like everyone else. The reason I did so much coke when I was Kid Rapscallion was because it helped me forget all the stuff that was going on in my life. It evened out the steroid serum I was taking, but I’d have to do ten to fifteen times the amount of cocaine a normal person would to get the same response, so it was much less addictive.
    Or so I always told myself.
     
    2
     
    When I hit the gym there’s a kid sitting on a bench over by the dumbbells, playing with his PlayStation Vita and oblivious to the rest of the world. I get a sudden urge to call Melody, but that risks getting the courts involved, and I damn sure don’t need a new arrest of my record.
    I stay on the other side of the gym from the kid and his too-loud machine and start doing a series of leg presses, starting with the lowest weight and advancing to bigger weights after a set of ten presses. I’m soon out of breath and ready to quit, when the door opens and a voice I did not want to hear enters.
    “I’ll be buggered by a bettlejack,” a loud, friendly voice calls out. “How ya doing, Jason?”
    I finish the last press and swing my legs off the side of the bench. A tall, thin, black man with short, green hair reaches out a hand and I take it, even though I know it’s going to hurt. “If it isn’t my favorite Black Martian,” I smile back, wincing at the power of his grip. “How’s it hanging, Ro’meo?”
    “Good, good,” he smiles. “Nancy said you were in town.”
    “Were you able to follow what she was saying with all the expletives she laid in?”
    “Nah, she didn’t swear,” he says. “Cory was there.”
    “Cory?” I ask, momentarily confused. “Oh, right. Her son. Well, your son, too, right.”
    “Right,” he says and the smile diminishes just enough for me to see it.
    “Pity about the green hair,” I say. “Well, I mean, it looks good on you, but … yeah, pity about the kid’s helmet, yeah? A kinetic helmet, Nancy called it? Must be hard for the kid.”
    Ro’meo’s eyes go wide and he starts to laugh. “Oh, Jesus, she really told you all that? I thought she was kidding. Good God, Jason, you really do get under her skin, don’t you?” He looks across the room to where the kid is still blissfully playing a video game. “Cory, come here, son, there’s someone I want you to meet.”
     
    3
     
    He’s just a normal kid. Sure, he’s got some Martian DNA in him, but Nancy apparently made Ro’meo use some kind of genetic suppression birth control that prevents most non-similar DNA from being passed on to kids.
    Think