It was ridiculous, really. He couldn't have leapt into the driver's seat and swerved to avoid hitting the truck. They would have been doused in nuclear waste either way. And since the doctors had declared them all to be (shockingly) in perfect health, JC was convinced that it had just been guilt. He was in less danger than the others of coming down with cancer, or mutating into a three-headed toad, or being horrifically disfigured for life. And of course that guilt wouldn't go away after the accident, because then he felt guilt for feeling so jealous.

After all, he was the only one without a superpower.

Lance was the first one to realize his power. It was hard not to, when he single-handedly threw half the bus off of Chris not ten minutes after the accident. They never told the press about it, though, because they liked Lance even if, as Justin said, "he's now an even weirder freak than before." Besides, he could crush beer cans into tiny little aluminum slivers, which was pretty cool, at least as far as JC was concerned. If nothing else, they were good for tiddlywinks.

Joey was the next to notice. They were sitting nervously in the hospital, and a nurse walked by.

"Dude! Check her out," Chris said, smacking Joey's arm. Chris seemed to be on a desperate mission to keep Joey a bachelor, because (JC thought) it justified Chris not settling down to a more adult lifestyle. Only this time, it backfired, because Joey turned bright red, and jerked his head away.

"What?"

"She's pregnant, man."

Justin snorted.

"No, I'm serious."

"How could you possibly know that, Fatone?" Chris demanded.

"I just. I looked. Hey! Maybe I have x-ray vision - you know, like Superman?"

Everyone rolled their eyes, but Joey persisted.

"Look. I'll prove it. Just, underneath your shirt you've got on that jRt necklace."

"Justin always wears that necklace, Joey," Lance pointed out. JC thought Lance sounded a bit cranky, like he wanted to keep the superpowers to himself. Like Joey was hounding in on his little bit of specialness. But maybe that was just wistful thinking, since JC didn't have a superpower of his own.

"Okay... um... look. A doctor's walking this way. He's about 5'11", with brown hair. A white guy, with glasses and a chart, in a lab coat. His name is... Dr. Simons."

Just then, Dr. Simons walked into the waiting room. In the ensuing silence, he took Lance off to be examined.

"Holy fuck," Chris whispered. "Dude!"

"I know," Joey said, "I'm Superman."

"Can you fly?"

"Umm... I don't know. How do you know if you can fly?"

"How would I know, Fatone? Jump out the window or something."

"Chris!" JC interrupted, "Don't tell him to jump out the window! What if he can't fly?"

"Hey! Where'd Justin go?"

It wasn't until Joey asked that JC even noticed Justin was missing. Then he heard a voice, coming from Justin's seat, that said, "I'm right here, man."

Chris shrieked like a girl and leapt straight up, landing in JC's lap.

"What?" asked the voice.

"Justin," said JC. "Um, Justin."

"Yeah, what?"

"Justin."

"Dude, would you stop repeating my name?"

"It's just."

"What C is not managing at all to tell you," Joey said, "is that you're not right here."

"'Course I am. See?" Presumably Justin poked Chris, because Chris shrieked again, and leapt one seat over, onto Joey's lap.

"Ow! Fuck, Kirkpatrick. That hurt!"

"What is with you?" demanded the Justin voice.

"Dude," said Joey, "you're invisible."

"What?"

"No, really. Like, even my x-ray eyes can't see you."

"Huh. Cool."

"It is not!" said Chris, "It's fucking scary, is what it is."

"What's the matter, Chris?" asked Justin, who had apparently gotten up and stuck his face right next to Chris' ear. Chris turned white, and buried his face against Joey's chest.

"Leave him alone, Justin. It's not everyday your best friend disappears on you."

Justin shrugged. JC knew he shrugged, because he reappeared while he was doing it.

"How?" JC squeaked.

"I just concentrated, 'sall."

"It's okay, Chris. He's back now."

Chris looked at Justin's tall form, at the sparkling blue eyes and mouth quirked in laughter, and leapt into his arms. He hugged him so tightly Justin started to turn blue, then he hauled back and punched him in the chin.

"Fuck! What the fuck was that for?!"

"If you ever scare me like that again, I swear to God Timberlake, you won't have time to concentrate on reappearing before your invisible butt is half-way to Never-Neverland."

Before Justin could reply, the doctor returned, and took him away.

"What's wrong?" Lance asked.

"Justin can disappear and Joey is Superman," JC said glumly.

"Can you fly?"

"I don't know. JC won't let me jump out the window. I *do* have x-ray vision, though."

"Huh," Lance said. "Cool."

"Hey, C?"

"What, Chris?"

"Why did Justin's clothing disappear too? How did he do that?"

"How the fuck should I know? Does it look like I have any fucking superpowers?"

JC jumped up and started pacing the waiting room. Chris looked at the other two, then got up and put a hand on JC's shoulder.

"It's okay, man. I don't have one either, you know."

Which, sadly enough, helped JC feel better for two whole days. Then they found out Chris could fly.

***

The rest of the tour (fortunately only four performances) had been cancelled, because they wanted to figure out how to work around their new issues. Justin needed to be able to sing and dance while concentrating on not disappearing. And Lance needed to flip Chris without sending him through a steel wall.

"Maybe we shouldn't do this yet," Lance said nervously.

"Look, Lance, you can only practice with crash-test dummies for so long," Joey said.

"I know, but..." Lance surveyed the broken arms, legs, and heads that covered the far wall doubtfully.

"Don't be ridiculous, Lance. We gotta get this down before our next tour," Justin said.

"Anyway, it's just Chris," said Joey.

"Yeah, I'd like to see you try it, Fatone. Fucking X-Ray Vision Man. You don't have to get tossed in the air like a fucking - ow! What the fuck?"

"Just do it, Chris," JC said.

"Okay. I can do this," said Lance. "I can do this without killing... oops?"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!"

"Holy fuck! He's flying!" cried Justin's disembodied voice.

"Now, see, that is so unfair. You were going to make me jump out a window when you were the one who could fly?"

"Shut-up, Fatone."

"At least you have a superpower, Joey."

"Yeah, but x-ray vision? I can't even use it for anything good. What does he wanna fly for, anyway? He doesn't even like heights."

"Speaking of which, guys..."

"Like you're not surreptitiously checking out the babes," said Justin's voice.

"And at least you can do more than crush beer cans and send your friends flying through the air."

"Hey! Assholes!"

"What?!" they all shouted at Chris.

"How do I land without breaking something?"

"I'll catch you," said Justin, who still hadn't reappeared.

"Ha ha. Very funny, Timberlake."

"I've got you covered," said Lance.

"I don't think so. You've done enough already, tossing me up here. Besides, if I slipped you'd probably break half my bones."

Joey looked around. "There're some gymnastic mats two rooms over."

They all looked at JC.

"What?"

"Could you..." said Justin, as he started to reappear.

"I might rip them in half," said Lance.

"We're still working the kinks out," said Joey.

"Fine."

When he returned, lugging a gymnastic mat behind him, half of Justin's right leg was missing.

"It fell asleep," he said sheepishly.

"If you rub it, maybe I can see your veins crackle," said Joey.

"Hey, C, check it out!" said Chris, and he did a somersault.

"Do you want to land or not?" JC asked.

"Yeah, sure. I just wanted to practice, you know," said Chris softly.

Lance smacked him.

"Ow!" JC cried as he fell backwards into Joey.

"Sorry," said Lance, "I. Um. It's just, you could be nicer, you know?"

JC stared at them. Chris had gently glided to a halt, as smoothly as if he'd been flying for years. Joey, eyes narrowed in concentration, was watching Justin rub his foot. Bits of his toes kept appearing and disappearing. Suddenly, it was too much. JC stomped out of the room, slamming the door behind him. He ran downstairs, got into his car, pulled out of the compound and actually made it home before he started crying.

***

It wasn't, JC reflected, like the guys didn't want him to have a superpower. After he had stormed out of the compound, the four of them drove over to his house and refused to leave until he spoke to them. (It didn't help that Joey kept yelling, "I can see you in there, Jayce" and Chris tried to fly down his chimney.) They spent three whole days testing him, trying to thing of wacky things he might be able to do.

"Hey C... read my mind, man. C'mon. I bet you can," Joey said, sometime on the third day.

"I can't. I've been trying."

"Sure you can. Come on. Try."

JC concentrated again, as if he hadn't been trying surreptitiously for the past ten minutes, "I'm just... sorry. There's nothing there."

"Holy shit. He really *can* read minds," said Chris.

"Fuck you." But it had made JC smile, anyway.

"Maybe he can bend spoons with his brain," said Justin.

"What the hell kind of super power is that?" asked Joey.

"It's a power, man."

"Yeah, Joey," said Lance innocently. "Didn't you ever watch that cartoon Silverware Man? You know. Where the guy and his loveable sidekick Utensil were always bending spoons for the good of mankind?"

Chris laughed. "Maybe he can breathe underwater. Like Aquaman."

"No. Joey made me try that one last night," said JC glumly.

"No luck?" Chris asked Joey, with a raised eyebrow.

"I revived him pretty quick," said Joey defensively. "There shouldn't be permanent damage."

"What about brain stuff?" asked Justin.

"Brain stuff?" said Lance.

"Yeah. Like... Rainman kind of shit. Like being a human calculator or something."

"That's not it," said JC.

"You don't know that!" Justin was insistent. "Here... try it with cards."

Justin slipped back into view, a deck of cards in his hand. He divided it roughly into two piles, and tossed one in the air.

"Okay, quick, C. How many cards?"

"I don't know! Fifty."

Lance said, "There are only 52 cards in the whole deck, JC."

"Jesus, Joey, how long was he underwater?" asked Chris.

JC buried his head in his hands.

And they kept it up, too. Even after it should have been clear to all of them, JC insisted, that he just didn't have any special powers. But Chris kept poking him, saying "you do too, C," and JC didn't have the heart to argue with him, even when he performed a double back-flip before diving into the pool, and demanded praise for it as if he were a normal diver.

Justin would occasionally sneak up behind him and frighten the hell out of him, apparently expecting him to break out a superpower from shock.

Lance made him an entire tiddlywinks set out of Budweiser and Heineken cans, which was pretty thoughtful since it meant he'd had to drink a lot of Heineken.

Joey just kept starting at him with narrowed eyes, as if he could see JC's power, if only he looked hard enough.

JC threw them out after a week.

***

It was a whole month later that the second accident occurred. They'd all decided to go out clubbing, ostensibly just to hang out but really, JC was sure, because the others were worried about him. At least, that was the only reason he could think of for why they insisted on taking just his car - so that he couldn't sneak out and leave without them. On the way to the club, some idiot in a Beamer ran a red light, right in front of them. JC froze.

Rather, he decided two minutes later, everyone else froze. He could see the dashboard starting to bend on Lance's white knuckles. Chris was half off the seat, as if he were trying to fly out the window. Joey, who had shouted "Watch out!" five seconds before the Beamer appeared, had wide, unblinking eyes. Justin was partially transparent - caught in the act of disappearing. JC could see the leather seat through Justin's chest. It was, he decided, really fucking cool.

There were no cars behind them, so JC carefully backed up, and kept his foot on the break. Then he felt for the muscles inside, where something in his stomach had clenched uncontrollably, when he'd thought he would be unable to save them again. He found the clenched bit, and he sort of relaxed it, and talked his heart back down from his through, and smoothed away the wrinkles around the corners of his eyes. And everything came crashing back to action.

Lance's hands went through the dashboard into the glove compartment, Chris hit the ceiling, Joey screamed, and Justin disappeared. The Beamer, now well in front of them, finished crossing the street. JC looked both ways, and calmly continued driving.

"What the fuck?!!" They screamed, JC noticed, in unison.

"It's okay," he said, "I fixed it."

"What?" Lance said.

"Who?" Justin said.

"How?" Chris said.

"Huh?" Joey said.

"I froze time," said JC smugly. He drove back to his house, since it was pretty clear the others didn't feel like clubbing anymore.

"You..." Chris trailed off.

"Holy fuck!" said Justin, who still hadn't reappeared.

"Awesome, man!" said Joey.

Lance sighed, and tried to fix the dashboard.

***

When they got back to JC's house, there was a black van outside. A large black van, with unreadable plates. The five of them stared at each other.

"It's... three women," whispered Joey.

"Do they look like, you know, fans?" asked Justin.

"No. They're wearing black. They have guns. And... clipboards."

"Clipboards?" asked Chris.

"What do they say?" asked JC.

"I don't know," said Joey, "I can't read backwards yet."

"Some good you are," said Lance, and got out of the car. The rest of them followed, though Justin remained invisible. He sidled up to JC, and whispered, "If they start pulling the guns, freeze 'em, 'kay?"

JC nodded.

The van doors opened, and three women got out. They were dressed all in black, with guns tied to their legs, like in Westerns. One of them carried a clipboard.

"*Nsync?" asked the one with a bandanna around her head.

"Yes?" said Lance, who stood in front of them defensively, ready to protect them all.

"Good. We found you," said the one in leather. "Took forever."

The five of them stared at each other.

"Come on," said the first one, "Let's get out of here."

"Excuse me?" said Chris.

The third, the one with the clipboard, peered over her glasses at them, and then back down at her notes.

"You are *nsync, aren't you?"

"Yes," said Joey.

"Justin Timberlake, Joshua Chasez, Lance Bass, Christopher Kirkpatrick and Joseph Fatone?"

"Yes," they said in unison.

"You were, were you not, in an accident on August 17th, involving a truck which carried nuclear waste?"

"Yes."

She slammed the clipboard against her thigh. "Then what's the fuss about?"

"Um," said Justin, who had decided to reappear, "Who are you?"

The woman in leather turned and banged her head into the side of the van. "Why," she asked, "Do I always get the stupid ones?"

"Hey!" said Joey.

"It's okay," said Bandana, "they just don't know yet."

"Know what?" asked Lance impatiently.

"We're here to train you," said Clipboard.

"Train?" Chris seemed to be incapable of speaking in multi-syllabic words.

Leather sighed. "Train you," she repeated. "You're superheroes."
next story index