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The Capital Exposition.

Gonzáles's State of the City: Crime Rates on the Decline?

By Raúl Gonzáles Blanco, senior columnist.

The statistics are in. Crime has been on the decline in Capital City for the past decade and a half. This downward trend has been often attributed to new techniques, which can certainly be seen as effective, due to violent and theft-related crimes being reported at decreased rates.

Despite the decline in more traditional crime, there are still worries for the citizens of Capital City. Incidents, like the recent mutant bat infestation has led the Captain, the city's costumed vigilante, to take matters into his own hands. The Captain, real name unknown, has done great things for this city, such as banishing the actual Devil from city limits and stopping the Invincible Eleven from capturing the city. Where would we be without the Captain?

Probably nourishment for the Kraken, from which the Captain also saved us.

- 

“Ugh,” he moaned.

When Karim opened his eyes, he had eleven dudes surrounding him, leaning over him, peering in closely like he was a specimen under a microscope. Nine players, the ref, and the singular linesman. Hal fo f them were wearing red shirts, the other half purple. Iker spoke first, holding out four fingers, “Are you okay? How many fingers do you see?”

“What's the name of Cris's hair gel?” Sergio asked, wearing a purple shirt that looked like Ed Hardy re-digested. He was the defender from the other team. Everyone in the league knew each other pretty well. Last season, Karim had been on Sergio's team.

“Fuck if I know,” Karim sat up. Big mistake. The world began spinning like the Gravitron.

“He's fine!” Álvaro, the only linesman for their game—his blue team was playing later in the afternoon—said, slapping Karim on the back. A real good whack. Bad. Not good. Sergio rubbed Karim's head, in an attempted, good-natured way. No. Oh no. Code red.

He threw on up the three pairs of closest shoes on his right, belonging to Toni, Luka, and Fábio. One of them blurted out immediately, “Those were two weeks' pay!”

“Not the Predators!” another, Fábio, moaned.

The game was determined to be over. Three of the players had ruined shoes. Another was concussed. There weren't many willing or able players left on the pitch anymore. Raphaël and Karim went back to the apartment that they shared with Sami Khedira, another member of the five-a-side crew, but on Marcelo's team. Their team still had a match against that one team no one liked because they all took it far too seriously, all wearing matching shirts and actually doing training. Karim wouldn't have been surprised if they were taking PEDs. They were basically the East Germany of five-a-side Sunday soccer teams.

“Drink a lot of water! Lay on the couch. I'll make you dinner,” Raphaël ordered. Karim followed his instructions, uncapping his water bottle. He flopped onto their Craiglist couch, found on the side of the road; he pushed a newspaper left there by Sami onto the floor. The cover had a large blurry photo of the Captain, the local superhero, darting across the sky over downtown.

“You shouldn't have gone for that header! You know Cris would rather die than no take a crack at those,” Raphaël shouted from the kitchen. Karim dug his finger into a hole in the couch cover, ripping the green and orange paisley fabric a little bit.

“I'm the striker. Allegedly, it's my job to score goals.”

“Not with Cris, though. You know that,” Raphaël said. Karim picked up a spoon that been left on the coffee table, next to Raphaël's scattered X-Men comic books. Sami must have had coffee that morning. He bent it easily, like it was putty. It looked like one of those spoons handled by that guy who could bend spoons with his mind.

The year before, he had fun on Sergio's team. He was even allowed to score goals. This year, he had to keep feeding Cris assists, watching Cris whip his shirt around like he had won the Champions League or even a high school tournament. With every goal, Cris had found more over-the-top and dramatic ways to celebrate. It seemed to just be innovative methods of rubbing it in Karim's face.

“That doesn't mean he should have elbowed me.”

“It wasn't his elbow, bro. His shoulder,” Raphaël corrected, coming back into the living room. He was still wearing his red Flash shirt that he wore to the five-a-side games every week.

Raphaël was going to be a great teacher someday. His greatest desire was to correct everyone on the planet, or so it appeared. Karim shrugged. His headache hadn't dissipated all that much, despite the amount of time that had passed.

“So? He still shouldn't have shouldered me! I could have died.”

“You rose up into his shoulder. Like a dumb dolphin.”

“So it's the concussed man's fault that he has a concussion?”

“Kind of,” Raphaël smiled, poking Karim's belly button, “Don't pout, you know how much we all like you.”

After they ate, they played Monopoly, since Raphaël declared all electronics off limits, even the TV, for fear that if Karim glanced at the TV once, he'd fall into a coma. When Sami got back, he joined them, but Karim hated Monopoly, as all sane people should. Raphaël was the car, Sami was the thimble and Karim was the iron. Those were the only original tokens left, whenever they played a full game of Monopoly with more than three people they had to harvest pieces from the Sorry and Trivial Pursuit boxes. Cris got upset one time when he landed on Park Place, which had a hotel on it and smashed his fist into the game board, scattering the whole thing. It rained brightly colored paper money.

When Raphaël and Sami were distracted by the popcorn in the kitchen, Karim moved his iron so it would be less likely to fall into Sami's maroon property housing blocks. Board games should have a clearly defined endpoint; without one, emotional turmoil could continue on for hours. When he was growing up, there were more Benzemas than Monopoly pieces, so sometimes, if they all wanted to play, they had to team up. It usually devolved into a shouting match, someone flipping the board, and someone else crying, before anyone could win. Karim, the odd duckling of his family, never got to be on anyone's team, having to be content with moving the lame little boot around the bored by himself.

Karim went to bed early, since there was nothing to do, if he couldn't watch TV or play on his phone. If his only option was to continue playing Monopoly, Karim was tempted to risk permanent brain damage to look at an electronic screen.

Unable to actually drift off, Karim watched the steady red light from his bedroom's TV power button. All he had to think about was the steady pounding in his head, which felt like his brain was pulsating in his skull. He just didn't get why Cris didn't him score. Was Cris going to die if he didn't have the attention on him for once? It must have been nice being Cris: hero of the five-a-sides. Karim didn't even have that pathetically minor distinction. He was just Karim Benzema, failure of the Monopoly board.

The next morning, his alarm clock went off, wildly vibrating around the nightstand. He reached out blindly to shut it off. It was one of those old ones with two bells at the top. In his half-asleep state, Karim stuck his fingers in between the tiny hammer and the bells, so it would just stop making noise. He sat up, yawning, stretching out, with his fingers still tucked in the alarm clock. After he turned off the alarm clock, it refused to part from him, deciding to stick itself to his body, near his armpit. The metal and glass of the clockface were cold, even though his t-shirt.

Karim grabbed a plastic plate from his desk, all of the toast crumbs fell onto the floor, as he tried wedging the plate between his arm pit and the alarm clock. Using the plate like a lever, he pushed the alarm clock away from his body, using enough force to launch the alarm clock away, smacking off his bed and onto the floor. Karim poked at the alarm clock with the plate, before getting dressed and dashing off to work.

He skipped breakfast, having used his meal time trying to pry the alarm clock from his skin. When he tried to locking up, the key laid flat in the palm of his right hand. He tried pulling away with his other hand, but then the key got stuck laying flat in his left palm.

“What the fuck?”

Karim tried to pry the key, but his nails were too short. He stood in front of the door for a minute, not sure what to do. He decided to just hope no one broke in while he was gone and ran to work. He checked his watch, but it had stopped.

He went through the back door. The big metal door. He let go, but the door remained ajar. Karim kicked it, pressing it shut with his sneaker. Things were definitely not right anymore.

With his watch acting weird, he had no clue whether he was late or not. He went to swipe his card in the time clock, but the little electronic panel returned an error message. ERROR. ERROR.

The boss, José Mourinho, came in from the front of house and saw Karim standing in front of the time clock. He tapped his wrist, smiling wolfishly, “You're late, Benzema. I can't say I'm surprised. Go clean the walk-in.”

Cleaning the walk-in was the generic punishment for anyone who showed up late, ever since Mourinho had marathoned every episode of Kitchen Nightmares.

Karim looked at the key stuck in the palm of his hand, while dragging the plastic garbage behind him. Plastic behaved normally, but everything else was not right. He opened the walk-in door to go in to get it all over with.

According to Sergio, who was the head waiter, the restaurant used to be a morgue, which was why the walk-in didn't have a handle on the inside. Allegedly, the previous owner was afraid of zombies. Karim was fairly certain that most restaurants had handles on the inside of their walk-ins, otherwise the kitchen scene from Jurassic Park wouldn't have made much sense. Mourinho probably didn't particularly care for employee safety and didn't bother having a handle installed on the inside. No one else had ever gotten locked in the walk-in though. No one was that stupid.

No one else was having a weird day like Karim was. No one else had metallic objects acting weirdly, like Karim did. No one else had the walk-in door follow them and shut tightly.

“HELP!”

He pounded on the walk-in door. Something seemed to creep onto Karim's back. It was light like a bed sheet. Karim spun around, attempting to peel it off of his back. He grabbed at something and tore aluminum foil that had been previously covering some food that was prepped for the lunch rush. More foil sheets floated over, wrapping Karim in a generally fishy-smelling hug.

The door opened and Karim rushed out, still covered in foil. Sergio was standing next to the door, struggling to shut it. Karim paced, acutely aware of all of the metal in the kitchen. Stainless steel gleaming, winking almost.

“Is this a sex thing?” Sergio asked.

Mourinho reentered the kitchen from the front of house, “What the fuck, Benzema? I thought I told you to clean the walk-in, not wear it!”

“I don't know what's going on!”

Karim backed away from the metal counters, the stove, and the oven. It all had a pulse. It all was alive and it all wanted him. He backed up into a cart of dirty utensils, which was supposed to have been cleaned already. Serving spoons covered in old soup bits and vegetable matter attached themselves to Karim's back, ass and upper thighs. Not knowing what to do next, not sure how any rational person was supposed to react, Karim bolted. He went straight out the back door.

“You're fired!” Karim heard Mourinho shout from the back door.

Fences creaked. Buildings groaned. Karim had never been so acutely aware of how metallic the entire city was. An iron jungle. His fillings even ached in his mouth.

The lock on the outside door to the apartment building was malfunctioning, allowing Karim to run in without having to punch in his code. He ran up the stairs, taking three at a time. He burst through the apartment door, startling Raphaël, who had been watching TV and sending the TV into fits of weird distortion.

“Why do you look like the chrome-plated Swamp Thing?”

“It all attacked me! Something really weird is going on!”

“Yeah, I can see. Come here, I'll help you,” Raphaël said, sitting up. Karim approached him carefully. His head hurt being so close to the TV. Raphaël tugged on one of the ladles on Karim's back to no avail. Karim pulled one off his left buttcheek, which was remarkably easy, but he couldn't drop it. He opened his palm, but the spoon remained stuck to his palm, like his key to the apartment.

“This is weird.”

“I told you!”

“Where did this happen?”

“Work. The whole kitchen's stainless steel,” Karim said, gathering more spoons into his hand. Raphaël sat on the floor and watched. He opened his hands and nothing clattered to the floor.

“You're like a magnet,” Raphaël said, “It's like you've got real superpowers.”

“Don't be stupid,” Karim replied, trying to shake the spoons out of his hands, only managed to rustle around in his tinfoil outer layer.

“Have you been playing around in nuclear dumpsites or been struck by lightning?”

“When would I have the chance to do that? I'm with you all the time,” Karim shook his hands more violently with no success.

“Been bitten by a radioactive spider?”

“I would have completely different powers altogether, wouldn't I?”

“Or you'd be dead. Radioactivity isn't the kindest of activities,” Raphaël said, reaching to touch Karim's hand, to try to tug the stuff away. Raphaël held Karim's hand and everything clattered to the ground. The foil sheets wafted gently. It was almost too long before Karim pulled away.

“Weird,” Raphaël repeated.

“Is it done?”

“How should I know? Who would know?”

“Yahoo answers?” Karim asked hopefully.

“The day Yahoo answers knows the appropriate answer for anything is the day I start flying,” Raphaël replied.

“So, sooner than you think?”

Raphaël let out a singular, derisive, “Ha.”

“Do you think the Captain has a helpline?” Karim asked. The Captain, the local superhero, wore a white uniform with pink piping, a remarkably bold choice in superhero fashion. Raphaël and Sami were both obsessed with him, reading endless think pieces on superheroes and their place in society and speculating on his real identity all the time.

Raphaël said flatly, “Call your mom. I'll consult some literature and we'll figure out what to do from there.”

Karim noted that Raphaël, rather than picking up a medical journal, picked up an X-Men comic, which was not promising. He went into his room to grab his cell phone. As soon as he left the living room, the TV's sound returned and the distortion on the screen stopped.

His cell phone, an iPhone 4s with a cracked screen, didn't turn on. He was pretty certain that he charged it the night before, but it steadfastly refused to turn on. He plugged it back in and went back into the living room, “Rapha! My cell phone's not working.”

“Use mine,” he didn't look up from his comic book, handing it to Karim. The screen changed from the usual tiled background with apps to a white screen with a gray spinning wheel.

“Yours is fucked up too.”

Raphaël took it back and smacked his forehead, “You corrupted my phone.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You're a magnet. Because you're a magnet, you're corrupting hard drives and stuff,” Raphaël explained. He pointed at the TV, which started to distort again, “You're Magneto, but with no self-control. You know, from the X-Men?”

“The bald one in the wheelchair?”

That's Professor X,” Raphaël said with a lot more snide than Karim thought possible for the subject matter of their conversation, “He's a mind reader.”

“Even if I believed that X-Men comics will prove to be an appropriate how-to guide, which I'm not saying I do, but why magnets? I don't have anything to do with magnets. How did Magneto choose his powers?”

“He didn't. He was born with them,” Raphaël said, “That's why I think you should call your mom.”

“You think my mom has super powers?” Karim asked, “You think Wahida has a super power?”

“Well, she'd know more than you do.”

“Well, I can't use phones anymore, so how am I supposed to get in touch with her?”

“Use a landline. Use the payphone in the basement.”

“How do you know I won't short that out?”

“Because you can't, dummy,” Raphaël said, glancing at his cell phone forlornly. Karim trusted Raphaël pretty thoroughly, so he trusted him about the phones. He dipped his hand into the change jar on the counter before leaving. About a thirty coins stuck themselves onto Karim's hand. A healthy mix of quarters, dimes, and nickels, and mostly pennies. He took the stairs, not sure if he could trust the elevator, considering elevators were pretty much all magnets and metal. He didn't want to tempt anything.

As Karim picked out two quarters, he thought about Raphaël. His face was really calming in a weird way. He was a soothing person. The coins fell into the metal tray below the phone. Clanging.

His mom answered. Raphaël was right, as per usual.

“Mom. It's Karim. I've got something important to ask you.”

“Make it quick, honey. Your sister's here with the baby.”

“It's going to sound kind of nuts. Does anyone in our family have superhero powers or anything?”

“Did Gressy say something to you? I told him not to!”

“Wait, what?”

“We didn't want you to feel bad, Karim.”

“About what?”

“About everyone having superpowers except you.”

“What?”

He didn't know what to say anymore. If there were words that could be put together in a sequence to make a coherent sentence.

“I'm sure Gressy didn't mean to hurt your feelings when he told you."

“You guys were the X-Men and you didn't tell me?”

“We didn't want you to feel left out.”

“Now, I feel you guys just lied to me for my entire life,” Karim asked, “Wait, what power do you have?”

“I can make my children clean their rooms.”

“That's it?"

“Well, it's called mental manipulation, but it's what I used my power most often for. I have nine children and not enough time in the day to pick up after every single one of you,” she replied, “Sweetheart, I hope you're not mad. We wanted you to feel normal.”

“That's beside the point, right now.”

“What is the point, then? I have a grandchild to fawn over.”

“I think I have one of your weirdo freaky powers,” Karim said.

“Really? That's great news, honey!” she had never sounded so proud of him. He hadn't made the honor roll or been the sports star or anything, so it was the first time she had cause to be. “What can you do?”

“I'm like a magnet.”

“That's fantastic!” she shouted off the phone, muffling it with her hand a little bit, “Hafid! Karim has a power!”

“What kind?” his father shouted back.

“He said he has magnetic powers!”

She spoke to Karim again, “I have to tell your grandmother! Karim, this is great news! We thought we messed you up!”

She hung up on him, presumably to call his grandmother, who probably had her own weirdo, freaky superpower.

Karim grabbed the rest of his coins and went back upstairs. He wondered what kind of powers Gressy had, briefly, but when he got back, Raphaël waved a comic book at him, “We need to get you a better handle on your power. So you can be a superhero.”

“A superhero? I don't even have a job anymore and you think I can be a hero?”

“All you need is a functional moral code and a superpower.”

“That's not true. Batman doesn't have a superpower.”

“He's super intelligent.”

“You're super intelligent and you're not waging a war on crime.”

“Listen, Karim, you already have a supervillain's power. Don't make it worse for yourself and be ambivalent on being a superhero. Either do it or become a bad guy.”

“Those are the only two options?”

“Yes.”

Karim paused for a minute, “Which pays more?”

“On average? Probably bad guy, but Batman has more money than pretty much everyone else combined.”

“Since I'm not Batman, it looks like I'll be a bad guy.”

Raphaël's annoyed face was almost enough to go through with the promise of becoming an evil villain. Karim wanted to bring out all of the emotions in Raphaël's face. Every single one of them: happy, mad, excited, annoyed.

“You still have to figure out to control your powers. You can't live here if you fuck up the TV every time you walk past it,” Raphaël said, adding, “And you owe me a new phone.”

Raphaël's great idea was to watch all of the Magneto-related scenes from X-Men: First Class. He rigged up a system of mirrors so Karim could watch it from his bedroom, so as to not cause magnetic distortion again. Raphaël shouted from the living room, “Are you learning anything yet?”

“I think Magneto should hook up with Professor X so he can lose some of his tension. It looks like he's carrying a lot of tension.”

Raphaël sighed loud enough for Karim to hear in his bedroom. Karim heard the front door open. Sami asked, “What's this?”

“Karim can't come into the living room anymore.”

“Why?”

Karim was about to attempt to explain why, but Raphaël said first, “He has the stomach flu.”

“Okay?” Sami didn't sound completely convinced and walked past Karim's open door to get to his own bedroom, giving him a quick glance.

Karim went back into the living room. The TV broke up back into distortion. He kneeled next to Raphaël, who sat on the sofa. He whispered, “Why can't I tell Sami?”

“It's supposed to be a secret. If you just tell everyone you know, you'll have the government at our door and they'll dissect you.”

“He lives with us. I think he'll notice that his computer, iPad, and anything else with a hard drive is fucked.”

“Dissection.”

“I mean, I get not telling everyone. But Sami sleeps twenty feet away from me. He'll notice that I can't watch TV with you guys anymore.”

“That's why you need to figure out how to control your powers. Right now, you're pretty calm and that's probably why nothing too bad is happening right,” Raphaël said calmly, “The options here are...you know the options.”

It was almost convenient to be unemployed, since it did give him time to try to be better at whatever he was dealing with. Raphaël continued to insist on referring to them as superpowers, even though they didn't feel like superpowers and were more like interesting burdens. He did ruin all of Sami's electronics the first night.

“My laptop, my iPad, and my iPod are all fried,” Sami said dropped them all on the carpet in the living room, while Karim and Raphaël were playing the 2002 edition of Trivial Pursuit. Raphaël had all of the trivia pieces except for geography, while Karim only had a sports wedge.

“I thought you were sick,” Sami remarked to Karim, sitting down on the floor next to them.

“Got better,” Karim shrugged.

“What happened to your stuff, Sami?” Raphaël asked. Karim wasn't going to ask, but Raphaël winked at Karim after asking, like messing up Sami's expensive belongings was a great plan that Karim had purposefully come up with.

“They won't turn on. It's really weird.”

Raphaël nodded over enthusiastically, overly interested, glancing at Karim every so often. He was the worst sidekick on the planet. The Captain probably would have fired him posthaste.

“Did you do this, Karim?”

“How would I?” Karim was very good at playing dumb. It wasn't really an act most of the time, so it was often believable.

“Rapha keeps looking at you, like you're in cahoots.”

-

Karim usually went to the park during the day, since everyone was at work, so he was the only one there, especially since rain was a near constant during the springtime in Capital City. He'd try to move the swings with the metal chains at the playground without touching it. He just sat across from the swings, on the bench where all of the moms sat on Saturday. Sometimes, all of the swings moved. Sometimes, there were large grand motions, like it the middle of a hurricane; the swings whipped around violently. It was hard to get just one to move, leaving the others alone.

On Thursday, Karim went through his motions, struggling with the swings earlier in the day. He couldn't watch TV with Sami and Raphaël, not that he wanted to mainline four straight hours of CNN anyway. He grabbed a Fantastic Four trade paperback off of his bookshelf, where it had been squeezed between Fast and Furious DVDs and a copy of the Hunger Games that one of his sisters had loaned him four months prior. The Fantastic Four book was previously assumed to be a tone-deaf birthday gift from his parents, but instead it was them providing him with clues to a life they thought he would never share with them.

His mother's loopy cursive was on the inside front cover, “Know that you're always special to us, no matter what! Happy birthday.”

No matter what. Karim didn't feel that his parents didn't love him or that he was unwanted. He just felt like he was on the outside looking in, for reasons he hadn't known up until Monday afternoon. He always felt like a weirdo, but he was always going to be a weirdo. At least, he knew why, now. A sense of calm settled into Karim's brain, filling all of the immediate doubts.

On Friday, he went to the park in the consistent drizzle, hood up. He sat on his usual bench, focusing on the middle swing. The middle swing's metal chains. They had dulled with age, rusting a little bit, but Karim could taste their coarse sweetness in his mouth.

It jerked. The swing jerked just a little bit. Popping up into the air, enough to prove it wasn't the wind.

He raised his hands into the air, like he was celebrating a goal, “Yes!”

By Sunday, Karim was pretty pleased with how things were developing. Raphaël, Sami and he walked to the five-a-side field. Karim actually felt comfortable enough to take the bus unworried that he'd accidentally destroy something, but Raphaël wanted to walk.

They were playing the team that everyone hated, while Sami was the linesman for the game. Luka was the only one from their team at the field already, while the other, possibly evil team was jogging around, like they were preparing for a match between the Capital City Constitutionals and the Santa Martina Condors.

“Feeling better, Karim?” Luka asked, conspicuously putting on his boots, the same ones that Karim had previously thrown up on. He glared at Karim, while putting on his boots, as if to say, with his eyes, that it had taken two hours of careful cleaning with an old toothbrush to get everything out, as well as a liberal dousing in Fresh Linen Febreze to make Luka feel comfortable enough to put the boots on his feet again.

Luis Suárez, Lionel Messi, Gerard Piqué, Claudio Bravo and Neymar (last name unknown) started synchronized stretches in matching, soccer-specific striped shirts. Karim, Luka, and Raphaël weren't even all wearing the same shade of red to prove that they were on the same team.

Karim flopped down to sit next to Luka, to pull on his own boots.

“You think we're going to lose?” Luka asked, leaning forward to rest his chin on his fists.

“It's highly likely,” Raphaël replied. The other team started practicing free kicks, as Cris and Iker arrived.

Iker observed the other team silently for a solid minute and said, “We're going to lose, aren't we?”

Luka and Raphaël shrugged simultaneously. Poor Iker had really tried to put together a team that could win the year end trophy. Every year, Lionel Messi and Gerard Piqué won with their evil, possible on stteroids teams. It was stating to weigh on the teams in the five-a-side league, who were all very eager to get a chance to win. Iker chose Cris first at the beginning of the most recent season, since he was the best player who wasn't on Gerard and Lionel's time. It drove Cris to amdness that he was never on the best team. Karim was the last chosen. Even if Cris didn't remind him sometimes, it was patently obvious, since the others had been among the first chosen in previous years.

Karim decided that having had a very good Friday and gaining new-found confidence because of that Friday meant that things could potentially be getting better. And maybe he'd figure out a way to cheat using his new superhero powers, so that Iker's team's collective pride wouldn't be wounded. He said, “Maybe we have a chance? I feel good today.”

“Well, if you keep up your scoring streak, maybe we'll get someplace,” Cris said, annoyed. Karim hadn't had a scoring streak since the previous season.

When they started the game, it became very obvious that something weird was happening. The other team was too good. Lionel Messi beat out Raphaël for loose balls every single time, besting him at every run. While it obviously wasn't impossible, it just seemed as if it would be incredibly unlikely, as Raphaël was an entire foot taller than Lionel Messi. Raphaël was so tall, one step for him was like three for Messi, whose feet were lost in a blur of motion. Cris tried to chip Gerard Piqué a few times, but no matter how high the ball went, Gerard Piqué headed it away. Karim got around Gerard Piqué and was against the line outside of the six-yard box. Karim aimed for the giant divot that was in front of the goal, hoping the divot would cause the ball to bounce weirdly and go into the goal. It hit the exact spot where the divot was, you could tell due to the discolored grass, where Marcelo, Karim, and Pepe had spray painted it green to cover up the fact that they had dug it up after Gonzalo Higuaín, a former member of the five-a-side group, told them he had buried a prize for them.

There was no weird bounce, even though Karim thought he got the kick right. Claudio Brave just collected the ball calmly.

During halftime, Karim drank water from his banged up water bottle, spirit flagging already. Raphaël's metal water bottle gave Karim a headache. He never thought he'd ever have to think like that before. That a metal water bottle could give him a headache.

He watched the other team carefully. Karim's suspicions were already heightened, so he spied on them from across the field. Something was up with them: they had powers too.

“Karim!” Sami shouted. Karim turned to look at Sami, who had evidently been using halftime to talk to some dude, who was ill-dressed for the occasion: old-fashioned browline glasses, heavy blue jacket with toggles and actual slacks. Sami said, “I was trying to introduce you. This is my coworker at the Exposition, Raúl Gonzáles.”

Karim stood up to shake his hand. Raúl Gonzáles stood at the touchline uncomfortably, stiffly, next to Sami, looking at Karim, like he was studying just a little too closely. Iker came over; he also worked at the Exposition and started cheerfully talking to Raúl, who seemed to warm up a little bit.

They lost. Karim's fillings hurt. He didn't want to walk back with Raphaël because of his dumb metal water bottle. He just wanted to be left alone. And there was no place in the entire city where he'd ever entirely alone, since metal was everywhere in Capital City. Even the big buildings with marble façades or concrete had metal underlying structures.

“I'm glad you had a good feeling,” Cris said, picking up his bag angrily. A metal bench nearby groaned.

Raphaël stepped in between, placing his hand on Karim's chest, “Come on, Cris. No one had a good game. Leave him alone.”

Just feeling Raphaël made Karim a little bit calmer. Instead of going home with Raphaël or even staying to watch Sami's game against Dani's team, Karim said he needed to go to CVS to buy Tylenol PM, but instead, he followed Messi and Piqué's team.

He approached them awkwardly after following them from an equally awkward distance for three blocks, “Hi. I'm Karim Benzema and I noticed that you have freaky X-Men powers.”

None of them said anything said anything at first. Piqué seemed to grow to even more intimidating height. Karim continuing, trying to smile to show that he had no ill intentions, “I've got one of those freaky X-Men powers, too. So...”

Piqué spoke, “Do you want to join our gang or something?”

“I didn't realize you had a gang. What does membership entail?”

“We mostly play soccer and rob banks,” Messi said, “So are you in?”

Karim didn't say anything at first, but eventually, he furrowed his brows, saying, “Let me get back to you. I've already got a five-a-side team, as you know, but that second one, I could use the money, but I'm definitely previously committed on that first one. I'll let you know.”

He shuffled away and when he felt like he was a safe enough distance from them, Karim ran back to the apartment.

Raphaël and Sami were still at the field, with Raphaël acting as the linesman for Sami's game. Karim opening up his gym bag, grabbing the Febreze from the bathroom sink. He was going to spray a bit of Candied Cranberry into the bag and leave it for next Sunday. He picked up one of the cleats, spraying liberally. Underneath the cleat was a piece of yellow-lined paper.

“RE: POWERS. MEET AT DOCKS @ 10:45PM.”

Disappointingly, the note was written in tidy ballpoint print. If there was any appropriate time for a note written in blood, this was it, but apparently, the writer had no flair for the dramatic. It was probably a gang initiation. Team Evil was going to make him move the freighters in the harbor in order to prove his worth as a potential bank robber.

As he said to Team Evil, he could use the money. And banks were generally multinational corporations that normally had questionable morals. And banks had to guarantee protection of accounts up to $100,000. It was pretty much a victimless crime. Pretty much.

So that was how Karim found himself going to the docks to meet who he assumed to be a gang of bank robbers with superpowers that could have been dangerous. He told Raphaël and Sami that he had to go to 7-Eleven to buy a cherry-blueberry mixed Slurpee.

Karim wore all black and felt kind of like a weird ninja, running through the Capital City streets to get to the docks, where the fog was so thick it was like running through cotton. There was a gray figure in the fog that got darker as Karim got closer, and ultimately technicolor. Only one, so presumably the gang was going to start slow.

“Karim Benzema?” the man asked. It was Raúl, the guy from the Exposition that Sami knew. He had a tie on, so presumably this meant that he wasn't part of a gang of part-time five-a-side players and part-time bank robbers.

“You're the writer from the Exposition, right?” Karim asked. It was an awkward conversation to start, so he figured he might as well get it going.

“Um, yeah.”

“So, are you going to...write a big exposé on me or something? Because I don't really want anyone to know I've got weirdo superpowers, since I've heard that scientists try to dissect superheroes, kind of like aliens, I guess.

Raúl widened his eyes behind his glasses, shaking his head, “No, no, no...I don't...”

Raúl started again, “I need your help.”

“Why?”

“I want to retire from being the Captain and I would like you to be my replacement.”

“What kind of superpowers do you have, if you're the Captain?”

“I have the Superman suite: flying, heat vision, super strength.”

“Awesome,” Karim nodded. All he had was that dumb magnet power where he could ruin electronics, kill the elderly, and get tin foil stuck to his body. He continued, “Since I've got semi-useless powers, why didn't you ask the other guys with powers? The ones who play five-a-side at the park? The ones we were playing today?”

“Because they're my nemeses. You will have to take them on as yours, too,” Raúl said gravely.

“I didn't agree yet. I haven't signed a contract or anything.”

“It's one you will sign,” Raúl said, “With your heart.”

Well, evidently, the Captain was insane. Karim told Raúl that he'd think about it. Especially since it had only been a week since he had found that he had superpowers and didn't really have any particularly useful one.

-

The Capital Exposition

Senior Columnist Disappears

-

Shit. Shit. Shit. Double shit. Karim stared at the blandly smiling face of Raúl Gonzáles Blanco on the front page of the Capital Exposition.

“That's horrible, isn't it?” Raphaël said, looking up from his text book and notebook. Karim nodded, with nothing useful to add. It was horrible. And not just because there was a family who didn't know what happened to their loved one, but also because there was a city that relied on a superhero who was now unable to respond to the troubles that were likely to come. And Karim Benzema, loser on both the Monopoly board and the five-a-side field, was possibly the only one who knew that.

When Raphaël went to the bank to deposit a scholarship check, Karim went into his bedroom to continue reading the newspaper. Maybe there was a clue. Like maybe the Invincible Eleven showed up again. If they showed up again, it was possible that they were holding the Captain hostage. Karim could call the police and they could go rescue him.

There were footfalls in the hall. Karim hadn't heard the front door open, but he assumed that Sami had just let himself in quietly. There was a knock at his bedroom door. Karim shouted, “Yeah?” without looking up.

“I think you need to start doing business,” Toni Kroos was standing over Karim, staring down at him. He was wearing a gray onesie jumpsuit with a watchface on the front of it.

“What the fuck are you doing here? Why are you wearing that?”

“The more important thing is that there is a bank robbery in progress and you are not doing anything about it.”

“How do you know that?” Karim stood up, leaving the newspaper on the bed, “How did you get in here?”

Toni and Karim were friendly but not friends. He was a new arrival to the five-a-side group and Karim had never been on his team.

“'Cause you're the Captain and there's a crime in progress.”

“How do you know that? I haven't agreed to do it! How do you know that the Captain asked me?”

“Oh man,” Toni said, “I didn't realize that I jumped back this early.”

Toni held out his hand, as if to shake, “I can time travel. I'm from the future. And there, you're the Captain. Okay, so let's suit up and get you to stop this bank robbery.”

“Since when have you had a superpower?”

“Radiation accident at work,” Toni explained. He was a scientist at Blatter Industries, which was a catchall for various scientific endeavors, including biological engineering, innovative cosmetics, and evidently, radiation.

“Anyway, you have to get dressed. I'm pretty sure Rapha has a Captain t-shirt,” Toni said, running out of the room to go into Raphaël's. Karim followed Toni, who was digging through Raphaël's closet, dragging out a white t-shirt with a large pink C on the chest.

“And you'll need a disguise for your face. Got to preserve your secret identity,” Toni said, grabbing a pink, drugstore eye mask from Raphaël's nightstand and rushed to Raphaël's desk, finding a scissor. He cut eyeholes out and shoved it into Karim's hand. Toni looked at Karim expectantly, “And you'll need a hat.”

Toni took a blue and white snowflake printed chullo off of Raphaël's door hook. He pulled it onto Karim's head, who didn't move at all, still confused.

“Are you going to save anyone or what?” Toni asked.

“Why...”

“Just so you know. Just to encourage you a little bit,” Toni said, “It's the bank that Raphaël's at.”

“Raphaël? Is he okay? How do you know all of this?”

“Future, duh.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Someone apparently had to show you how to be a superhero. We were all probably going to die, if I didn't show up,” Toni said, shoving Karim into the hallway, “So remind me to thank you in the future, 'kay?”

And that was how Karim found himself wearing Raphaël's sleep mask, hat, and t-shirt, standing across the street from the bank. Toni disappeared. Probably into the future. He walked in, trying to maintain calm. Breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth.

It was one of those times that made you wish Capital City had a more attentive police force. They really started to slack off after the Captain started superhero-ing.

“Shit,” he said to himself. Maybe if he agreed to do this whole superhero thing when Raúl was around, he could have done an internship or apprenticeship. One of the bank robbers turned around quickly when the bell over the door clinked. Piqué was much taller than usual, his hands grotesquely large, ready to flatten anyone who protested or tried to escape.

“Who are you?” Piqué demanded, raising his fists even more threateningly.

“It's the Captain!” one of the hostages shouted, “He's going to save us!”

“Where's his cape?” a different hostage asked in a disappointed stage whisper.

Karim concentrated deeply, almost crossing his eyes, trying to get one of the metal stanchions to fly through the air, so he could free the hostages, which include Raphaël, who was sitting near the teller booths, with a very perplexed look on his face.

The stanchion fell over.

“Shit.”

Gerard glanced at the stanchion, so Karim ran through the wood partition that separated the banker desks from the main part of the bank, where people usually waited on line, to talk to a teller. He grabbed a phone off of the closest desk and pressed “911.”

A brisk breeze washed past and ripped the receiver out of Karim's hand.

Messi skidded to a stop, near Piqué, who was also approaching him, holding the phone receiver. Lionel threw the phone down to the ground. Horrible dread filled Karim's stomach. He was probably going to die, smashed up in between Gerard's giant fists, or trampled to death at superhuman speeds by Messi.

The metal vertical blinds near the banker's desk floated up, to graze Karim's back. He was going to die. His guts were going to be stuck in the finger webs of Pique's enormous hands, which seemed to grow.

“I love you!” Raphaël shouted, from the other side of the partition, “I really love you!”

“Thank you, Captain!”

“Thank you!”

The hostages shouted as they fled out the front door.

Karim stood up a little straighter as the vertical blinds fell back against the window. He didn't know what to do, what the use as a weapon, how to save himself. He grabbed a “world's best dad” mug off of the desk in front of him and hurled with all of his might at them. Piqué batted it away with ease.

“What's going out there?” a voice shouted from the bank vault, which was in the far corner of where the bankers' had their desks.

“We've got a Captain impersonator out here,” Piqué shouted, “We have it taken care of.”

Karim saw a glint of metal from the stanchions, over the wood partition. Karim reached his hand out and pulled it back. The stanchion flew through the partition and smashed into Gerard's back. The stanchion fell to the floor, crashing with a hollow CLONG.

“Oh fuck. Fuck, fuck!” Karim shouted, ducking as he ran to hide behind a different desk.

“What is going on?” one of them came out of the vault. Bravo raised his hand, as he exited the vault. He raised his hand. The floor shook as it broke apart with Earth and rocks emerging through the floor.

Karim waved for the stanchion to hit Bravo too, but it missed. There wasn't really any hope to stop someone with super speed. Karim could look into the vault from his new position, as he peered over the desk. A large, frisbee shaped rock flew towards Karim. He ducked down below the desk and it hit the wall behind him, creating a huge hole in the wall.

Metal door. The vault door was metal. Neymar and Luis Suárez were both in the vault. Neymar held a silver coin up and it changed from silver to gold before Karim's eyes. Another rock was flung from the hole in the floor that Bravo had created. Karim ducked again. He hid under the desk to gather his thoughts. To try to figure out what he could do. He didn't have any other powers but to affect metal. Half of the office was plastic, the other half wood.

Messi stooped down to look under the desk, smirking at Karim. Messi said, “You've lost your touch, huh, Cap?”

Messi disappeared, leaving a heavy breeze behind him. Karim crawled out, glancing up at the metal, swinging light fixture in the ceiling. He pulled it down from afar. The light swung towards Bravo, who jerked himself to the side, so it didn't hit him. Luis Suárez was already outside of the vault, next to Claudio.

Karim decided maybe it was time to try to escape. Give up. Let the criminals win. You win some, you lose some. It was a solid philosophy when it was five versus one. As he readied himself to run, Suárez had approached him and grabbed Karim's arm. Suárez sank super sharp teeth into his arm. Karim let out a strangled scream.

The metal vertical blinds started freaking out. The hanging metal light fixture swung wildly. The stanchion rolled down the aisle between the desks.

He waved his arm, after Luis let him go. Blood spotted through the broken skin. There was a great crash in the vault. While Karim freaked out because of the bite, he had actually caused all of the safety deposit boxes in the vault to crash to the floor. Suárez, Bravo, and Messi ran into the vault, rejoining Neymar. Karim shut the vault door, the lock spun, making it impossible for the gang inside to escape.

Karim sprinted out, saying a quick “Sorry!” to Piqué, who was still lying on the floor and groaned in response. He kept running, continuing to the apartment. He jogged through an alleyway that was a shortcut to their building. He tugged off the hat and the sleep mask. He pulled off the t-shirt and pressed it against his forearm, still running.

Sami was watching TV when Karim got back; PBS was running a documentary on woodpeckers or owls or some other dumb bird.

“What happened to you?” Sami asked, standing up, “Your nose is bleeding and you're sweating profusely.”

Karim touched his nose instinctively. It didn't hurt, but sure enough there was blood. Maybe it was a stress-induced nosebleed. Or maybe it was from the stress of use superpowers he had no real idea of how to control. Or maybe he was having an aneurysm. Karim was in over his head. Really.

Sami grabbed Karim's wrist, “Jesus, are those bite marks? What is going on?” 

“I have Magneto powers and I tried to stop a bank robbery and I think I made everything worse. I don't want to get dissected by scientists. I just want to do normal stuff,” Karim said, his words ran together, making no sense.

“What are you talking about?” Sami said, not really expecting an answer, since he disappeared into the bathroom almost immediately. He emerged with the First Aid kit. He said, “This is a time where you don't want to go the hospital, I'm guessing.”

Karim shook his head.

“So you tried to stop a bank robbery?”

“I think I actually did stop it,” Karim said. They were all unable to escape, unless one of them had a superpower to escape bank vaults. 

“With Magneto powers?”

“Yeah, I didn't tell you before because Raphaël said you'd narc on me and have me dissected by scientists.”

“Jesus Christ, Karim, I wouldn't let scientists dissect you,” Sami said, wrapping gauze around Karim's forearm, “You don't annoy me that badly.”

“Even though I ruined your phone and your iPad?”

“When you put it like that, Karim, I have no choice but to call up Blatter Industries. Let's get Toni to take you away,” Sami smirked. Karim had almost forgotten about his visitor from the future. He wondered when exactly Toni would start traveling in time.

Raphaël came home after Karim's admittedly frazzled nerves had been soothed by several shots of cheap vodka from a plastic bottle that made him gag at first. Raphaël had gotten it from one of his particularly cheap friends at school for house-warming. Sami insisted that it was a necessary treatment.

Karim stood on tiptoes to kiss Raphaël. He needed that like he needed air. How he had not kissed Raphaël before? How? Why hadn't he?

“I'm proud of you. For what you did today,” Raphaël said. Karim smiled tightly. He had no clue whether he needed to tell Raphaël about Toni, about what Toni said about the future, where Karim was a superhero, potentially a future where Karim actually knew what he was doing. Toni hadn't said anything about the original Captain. The only person who could actually teach Karim what to do. Especially now that future Toni had disappeared and presumably present Toni had no ability to travel through time.

Maybe he wasn't going to attempt to stop bank robberies anymore, but maybe being a hero wouldn't be a bad idea. Especially since no one else seemed to be doing anything to keep the citizenry of Capital City safe. Maybe he could even find the Captain too.

Karim went up to the roof of the apartment building after Raphaël decided to replay the day's events for Sami. He stood near the edge of the roof, observing the city, his new responsibility. Capital City seemed quiet at the moment, almost romantic. The sun was setting over the river, throwing a wild yellow glare into Karim's eyes. But there was a bank vault full of criminals and current nemeses.

Karim sat, with his legs dangling over the side of the building, next to the fire escape. It was his city to protect now.