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After trying, and failing, to fit into my old suit I gave up and went shopping. It was the day before the big movie premiere and I’d, somewhat mistakenly, presumed that I’d fit into the suit I’d worn for years. I wasn’t fat, or overweight, but my suit button no longer fastened in the middle, due to the muscles: my abs, I actually had some abs, and I’d filled out a bit. Plus, the extra slices of cake I’d been having with my coffee probably hadn’t helped. If I was going to be meeting the one and only Keanu Reeves, then there was no way I was squashing myself into a suit that didn’t fit.
You would think that as a ‘superhero’, I’m not sure what to call myself but superhero seems to be the only thing that fits, I’d have rock-hard Ryan Gosling type abs; well, they are on their way, but I still look exactly like myself. Rather normal, some muscle taking shape, but still pretty regular. Barkley was joining me on the trip to Talon Hall, our local shopping centre, not that he needed a new suit. He’d bought some new ones recently thanks to his new fame. He’d agreed to give me the honest truth about which suit would look best on the red carpet, and possibly catch the eye of a super-rich, super hot celebrity or two. That was how I came to be standing in the middle of the Top Man changing rooms, with blue cigarette trousers, brown shoes, and a white shirt. I had to admit that I looked pretty damn good. Grown-up, even though as a forty-something, I was well-aware I was grown up. There’s nothing like a new suit to make you feel like an adult!
“I think you need to choose one of these jackets,” Barkley said, looking to the sullen teenage salesgirl for confirmation. She grunted in assent and thrust one of the jackets towards me.
“I thought I might skip the jacket. Doesn’t it look a bit more modern without one?” I asked tentatively. I was usually giving fashion advice to others, it was rare that I was ever on the receiving end.
“No, you need a jacket,” the salesgirl said as she popped her chewing gum.
Not wanting to disappoint, I slid into the blue jacket. It fit nicely, tailored at the waist. As I was admiring myself, she threw a tie from behind me. I caught it as it came for my face, something I likely wouldn’t have been able to do before iLUMiNO came along. I’d been noticing things like that for the past few days. Little things that are seemingly normal to the folk around me, but they strike me as odd. For example, my sense of smell has heightened. And I get the strangest sensation that I can intuit what is coming in the close future. Just very little things, like when the phone will ring, or when the post will come. It’s a sense of ‘knowing’ that I never had before. I’m sure it’s linked and so I’ve been trying to flex this ‘intuitive’ muscle as I’ve come to call it. Before I look at the tie, I know it will be bottle green.
“So, what do you think?” I do an over the top twirl once the tie is fastened into place, and watch Barkley descend into a fit of giggles at my gesture.
“Breathtakingly beautiful mate,” he says and I can’t help but laugh along with him. The salesgirl rolls her eyes and walks away, leaving me to get changed back into my normal clothes. It’s at this moment that I think how strange it is that the suit feels like just as much of a costume as my iLUMiNO get-up.
As Barkley and I climb into the train carriage home, pushing our way past push-chairs and loitering teens to find two seats near one another, I feel a strange sensation running through me. My guts feel unsteady, like butterflies are crawling within me. Something is wrong but I don’t know what. I look around and don’t see anything out of the ordinary. Then I feel a pull and I am not on the train anymore. I am back in the Neutral Zone. Time is standing still. Before me is Metatron. The ethereal, beautiful, blue and purple-eyed being. Purple robes swathed his body, billowing behind him.
“Where are we?” I asked looking around.
“Where do you think we are?” Metatron asked cryptically, tilting his head to one side like a confused puppy.
I looked harder, focusing on my surroundings. The world around me became populated. Train seats. The train tube. Stationary. No, not stationary, but sideways. Carnage surrounded me, people strewn around the cabin. I couldn’t tell if they were dead or alive.
“What is happening?” I asked of the robed-being, confusion overflowing me in waves.
“You had a feeling that something bad was going to happen...” the answer came.
“Wait, this is what the bad feeling is about?”
The response came in the form of a single nod.
“But what happened?”
“Think, Aaron, you know what happened or what is about to happen. You know how to stop it too.”
I emptied my mind, trying to ignore the world around me. I breathed in. Out. In. Out. I looked inside myself for the answer and found it almost instantly. The tunnel up ahead had collapsed and we were heading towards it at full speed. I had to do something to stop it.
“Well done, Aaron,” Metatron said as the Neutral Zone disappeared around me and I found myself back in the train compartment.
“I have to go to the loo,” I said, pushing up from my seat and walking down the aisle, not waiting for Barkley to respond.
I knew what I had to do. I knew what was going to happen if I didn’t intervene. I couldn’t let innocent people die. As I strode up the centre of the train towards the front compartment, and the toilets, I felt the machine pulsing underneath my feet. Shutting myself in the coffin-like bathroom, I could feel the energy flowing through its steel body. Exhaling, I reached with my mind, connecting with the wheels and cogs. I allowed my awareness to spread out, through the electrics, the components of the train, and to the engine. Bingo. Just what I wanted. Pushing the power from my mind, not my brain but my mind, and with all my might, I willed the engine to stop. I had connected the life force of the mechanism of the engine. The spluttering could be heard from all over the compartment, people looked around and grumbled between themselves, knowing something had gone wrong with the mechanics of the train. As far as they were aware, the train had broken down.
The train continued to coast, not slowing down fast enough to come to a standstill before we reached the collapsed tunnel. I pushed my awareness outwards, my mind grasping hold of the brakes and engaging them at once. Within a matter of seconds, the train came to an abrupt stop. Bracing myself against the toilet wall, I allowed myself to exhale properly for the first time. I had done it. iLUMiNO had done it. I sat down on the toilet, the golden aura that surrounded my body was dissipating I was still dressed in the iLUMiNO garb that had appeared on my body when the bathroom door had closed. It was a strange feeling that I had, knowing I could manipulate things with my mind, like the gun, not just little things, but huge roaring machines full of fuel and pistons. I had stopped them, with my powers. For the first time since becoming iLUMiNO, I was aware, I felt that we had become one and the same. I would embrace him and I was more open to finding more and more skills I might be able to use as iLUMiNO. I said a silent prayer of thanks to Metatron for guiding me through the situation, knowing that I could call on his support when needed, as I navigated the new world I had been thrust into. It afforded me the space to breathe.
Collecting myself as I washed my hands, I saw in my reflection my face returning to my own and my costume dematerialising as my normal clothing reappeared. Opening the toilet door to the train carriage and walking back to Barkley, feigning surprise as I asked him, “What the hell was that?”
***
THE RED CARPET ISN’T at all what you’d expect it to be. For starters, it’s about ten feet long and leads to nowhere. You have to step across the pavement and into the cinema, leaving the red carpet behind you. Lining the carpet are about a hundred people with cameras. Huge flashes going off constantly. You hear a chorus of, “Who is that?” when the lesser cast members make their way into the golden doors of the Empire building, the extravagant cinema in Leicester Square, London lit up in all its glory with its fine, palazzo-style exterior, reminiscent of its architectural and historic significance.
Surprisingly, there’s no chorus of confusion when Barkley and Darcey shimmy their way from photographer to photographer. Both of them have become an overnight sensation and are more recognisable together than apart. I walk a few feet behind them, allowing Barkley to hog the limelight. After all, it is thanks to him that I’m here. As I focus on not falling on my face in front of the audience, I do a bit of celebrity spotting. Keanu Reeves isn’t anywhere in sight yet, but there are a couple of actors from Coronation Street that I recognise and a few TV personalities, which is just as exciting for a premiere-virgin like me.
Once I’m ensconced in my seat, I feel immediately relaxed. All the nerves I’d felt before walking the red carpet had gone and I thought I can relax and watch the film. Just as the title screen appears, Keanu Reeves crosses the front of the cinema, taking his seat front and centre to a raucous round of applause. I join in, my heart skipping a beat, it feels strange that we can tie so many emotions to a person we have never met before. About half-way through an immense fight-scene, I get an urge to leave the cinema. Too strong to ignore. It feels like somebody is grabbing hold of the life-force within me and pulling me. I can’t resist.
Apologising to the unfortunate people sharing my row, I edge my way out of the cinema, knowing that Barkley will presume I need to visit the toilet again. My legs carry me through the foyer and towards a door labelled, ‘staff only’. Ignoring the sign, I try to push and pull the door but find it locked. I find myself looking around to see if anyone is watching, checking the ceiling and walls for cameras. No one is around, and the only cameras I spot are facing the box office and the main entrance. I place my hand on the door, a golden glow encompasses it as it goes halfway through. Quickly leaning my head on the door, I push it through making sure there is no one on the other side. Seeing the corridor is empty, I continue to walk through the door. As I did, I realise I’ve taken on the form of iLUMiNO. I find myself walking down a long, grey corridor that reminds me of the hospital I spend a lot of my time in. It is eerily quiet. No noise except for an intermittent buzzing. I stop myself. Trying to tap into that intuitive part of me that can sense what is wrong. I cast my mind back to Metatron and his advice. I need to breathe and focus. My mind’s eye spreads out around me. I picture it like tendrils of golden light seeping out of my body, searching to find out what has set me on edge. The feeling is reminiscent of that on the train and so I know I need to act quickly. There’s something very sinister occurring around me. I take a deep breath. Catching my reflection in a glass doorway, my golden glow adding light to the dimly lit corridor. I am iLUMiNO and that is all the ammunition I need. My intuition reaches out and grabs ahold of something I’m not familiar with. But I can feel the evil coming from within it, imprinted onto its cuboid body. Ticking like a clock. Before I can command my feet to move, my brain commands my body to dissipate and appear next to the source of the sound. The source of that bitter energy. My awareness tells me that I am below the screen showing the film I’m supposed to be enjoying. I can hear the car crashes and screams above, emanating from the big screen. My eyes find the source of my discomfort. A box is taped to a beam and a red wire and a blue wire stick out from beneath an old mobile phone.
A bomb.
“Shit,” I whisper to myself as I look at the foreign object before me. What the hell do you do with a bomb? How do you stop it? I reach my mind into the machine, feeling for the way it works, how the components fit together. The realisation hits me like a brick. There’s less than a minute before the bomb will go off. Forty seconds to be precise. The ticking noise fills my brain as I push my mind further and further into the depths of the bomb. How do I stop it? What the hell do I do? I begin to panic, my breathing quickens. That’s when I hear a familiar voice. Slow down, Aaron. Breathe in. Breathe Out. What does your mind tell you to do?
“It tells me to get this bomb as far away from these people as possible.”
I grab the bomb in both hands, doing the only thing I can do. I fly up through the dimly lit ceiling underneath the cinema. Flying up through and into the auditorium, I do not know if the people watching the movie saw me, I don’t have time to stop and think. Flying straight through the roof and attic space of the theatre and out into the open night. Flying as high as I can, my breath begins to freeze the higher I get. Below me, I can see the theatre and a quieter Leicester Square; the streets are empty. I thank God that the cameras have all vanished, or have they? I’m approximately two kilometres up in the air above, London with a bomb in my hand. I stop flying and assess my situation. Breathe Aaron. My awareness tells me to throw the bomb into the air and get away from it before it explodes. There are ten seconds left on the clock and I stare at it, I just stare at it in my hands, my breath hitting the timer as it counts down. As soon as it gets to three seconds, I throw the device up into the air above my head and watch. That is the point when I should have begun the descent, but instead, I watch in awe as the bomb explodes at first in silence. And then a bright flash of gold, white light. And then comes the deafening boom. It is beyond anything I could have ever imagined. It looks exactly like something out of a movie.
I am thrown backwards. The noise and shock waves that hit me are intense. I hear glass shattering underneath me as I begin to fall. I can hear people screaming and running out of buildings, alarms ringing out. I’m falling out of the air, but I am concussed, I can’t focus, I’m freezing and I’m falling, the only thing that’s warm is my neck. Holding onto my neck I realise a foreign object protruding from it. My hand reaches up and I feel blood. Hot and sticky. Thick. Dripping over my hand. A blinding pain screams around my body. I look at my fingers and they are covered in blood. As I breathe, as I fall, I am certain that I have done enough to keep the people safe.
Thoughts fall back into my head and I realise how vulnerable I am. It’s like being killed off in your first ten minutes of playing a new computer game. I have all these abilities... and I’m going to die...