Anna Fung, Superheroine

The streets of lively downtown Urbana, the third largest city in the U.S. behind Metropolis and Gotham City, swelled at lunch time. Office workers escaped from their high-rises to get a dose of the warm air and sunshine.

Lisa Loy blended right in. Her styled hair and sharp dress screamed "job-interview perfection" to anyone who noticed her.

Lisa held her cell phone to her ear as she walked by a deli with a line out the door. "This is ridiculous. I've lost count of how many applications I've filled out in the last few weeks," she told her grandmother over the phone. "Why did they have to close the Urbana office and send all our jobs elsewhere in this economy?"

Grandma Mei-Ling asked what kind of responses Lisa had been getting when turning in her applications.

"Yesterday, someone asked me if I knew Jackie Chan! So not only do some people think all Asians look alike, now they think we all know each other!"

"Jackie Chan, indeed! If I were just a few years younger…" Grandma Mei-Ling muttered under her breath.

"OK, moving on…" Lisa said. She imitated the various hiring manager's voices she'd recently dealt with. "Underqualified! Overqualified! Your impressive skills don't match our needs at this time!" Returning to her own voice, she added, "But this last one I just came from really takes the cake!"

Lisa recounted the story…

* * *

Lisa had been sitting in the reception area of Direct2U Psychics. She proofread the application paperwork which she'd just finished filling out.

A harried supervisor with the name tag Mrs. McGilicuddy noisily entered the reception area from an internal door. She clicked her fingernail against the edge of her clipboard in a well-worn groove.

Lisa stood up straight. She remembered reading an online article that said that the first thing hiring managers noticed about potential hires was their posture. She flashed an eager job-seeker smile as she extended her application paperwork towards the supervisor. Lisa started to speak.

Simultaneously, Mrs. McGilicuddy gave her the once-over with a sweep of her eyes. She didn't even move her head at all. Without bothering to even glance at Lisa's paperwork, she said, "Sorry, you're just not what we're looking for."

Stunned, Lisa stood there helplessly as Mrs. McGilicuddy turned on her heels and disappeared behind the internal door again. She took Lisa's hope of putting an end to this job-hunting aggravation with her.

Lisa looked towards the mini-skirt clad receptionist sitting behind the main desk. An explanation would have been nice, but Lisa would gladly have settled for an apology, even if it was insincere and from the wrong person. The disinterested receptionist merely shrugged and popped her gum.

* * *

Back in the present, Lisa continued her walk through downtown Urbana. When she finished telling Grandma Mei-Ling the story over the phone, the elderly woman paused a moment before responding.

Grandma Mei-Ling, like Confucius, believed that one word spoken with caution was better than a dozen spoken in haste. Finally, she advised, "Just give them exactly what they want."

Lisa stopped walking. A wide grin formed on her face while her mind devised the perfect plan. She nodded her head knowingly.

* * *

Lisa walked through the automated doors of Fifth Avenue Pharmacy. She smiled at the burly, but unarmed security guard posted near the exit. He grunted an acknowledgment.

She could never decide if it seemed safer with or without seeing guards in stores. On one hand, it was good to know they were there if any trouble occurred. On the other hand, didn't the presence of guards indicate that some expected trouble was likely?

Lisa quickly made her way up and down the aisles, throwing her choices into the cart. This was one time that she figured the less she thought about each purchase, the better the final outcome would be.

She spent the most time in the bargain area. Besides the fact that she was currently unemployed, she thought cheaper would be better for her idea anyway.

The bored teenage cashier wanted to ask her why she was buying all that junk, but he held his tongue. He'd learned in the few weeks he'd been on the job that asking customers questions only led to spending extra time with them, something he had no interest in.

Lisa swiped the gift card she'd been saving until she needed it.

"Debit or credit?" the cashier yawned.

"Gift card," Lisa responded. She glanced towards the door while the cashier tapped the keys on the register.

She noticed the chest-length beards on the two men that had just entered together. The beards reminded her of Halloween costumes.

The men also wore hockey team caps with the insignia of the Metropolis Crusaders. Since the Crusaders were the Urbana Hellcats' chief rivals, it was unusual to see their symbol around Urbana unless it happened to be the day of a game between the two teams and their fans were in town.

Although their sports caps were pulled down almost to their eyes, one of the men adjusted the brim with the thin leather glove covering his left hand. Lisa noticed the other man had gloves on as well.

She got a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach.

One of the men stopped to talk to the security guard. The other one quickly headed up the closest aisle towards the pharmacy counter in the back of the store.

There was no doubt in Lisa's mind; the pharmacy was being robbed! Lisa shifted her body so she could watch the thief out of the corner of her eye while she figured out what to do next.

Suddenly, the guard moved from his perch towards the door. The bearded man followed him from an arm's length away. The man's right arm was shoved in the pocket of his zipped-up hoodie. Lisa saw the outline of a gun poking through the material, pointed at the guard

The guard approached the electronic keypad next to the door.

The bearded man spoke through gritted teeth. "Just enter the code to lock the door. No funny stuff. No bein' a hero. I see a cop car or hear a siren, they'll be cleaning your brains, or what's left of them, off the door, the walls, and the floor. Got it?"

The security guard gulped and nodded. His fingers slowly punched in his numerical password code. He hit a couple more keys and the door locks snapped into place.

The thief took a candy bar from the display near the door. He struggled to open it with his gloves. He finally managed and took a bite out of it.

He pursed his lips and reluctantly swallowed. "I hate this new flavor with coconut in it. The wrapper is almost the same color as the original flavor. I always grab the wrong one."

He tossed the rest of the uneaten candy bar into the trash barrel.

Lisa figured the security guard was relatively safe being near the glass entrance doors. The thief was unlikely to make good on his threat to shoot him or anyone else in full view of the passersby on the sidewalk. She was not so confident about what the other thief in the back of the store might or might not do.

She casually walked away from the cash register without saying anything.

"The computer’s just going a little slow processing your card," the unobservant and clueless cashier called after her. "It's been like this all day."

Lisa slipped quietly down the toy aisle towards the back of the store. She heard the thief in the front order the cashier to step away from the register and the phone next to it.

When she reached the end of the aisle, she dropped to the floor and peeked around the corner of a huge cough syrup display that was as tall as the end cap shelving unit. She discovered that she was too late!

Several customers were lying on the floor with their hands over their heads. The thief restrained a young woman's arms behind her back with one hand. He held a gun to her temple with the other hand!

Lisa was surprised that none of the customers had screamed when the thief first brandished the weapon. The pharmacist, who looked to be a year or two away from retirement, opened the cash register. His hands trembled as he pushed a wad of twenty-dollar bills into a small paper bag.

"That's right, old man. Stuff the cash in," the criminal growled.

"OK, I'm going as fast as I can." His voice wavered with nervousness.

"The tens too," the bearded man ordered.

The pharmacist complied. He raised one arm to wipe the sweat off his forehead with the sleeve of his white lab coat.

The sudden, unexpected movement caused the thief to jam the gun barrel into his hostage's skin. This time, she did scream in response.

He yanked her arms tighter. "Now, what did I tell you about screaming?" he said in an eerily calm voice.

"Not to do it," she spit out between deep, heaving breaths.

"That's right. I don't like screaming. Do it again and it'll be the last sound that comes out of your pretty little mouth!" He traced the gun, almost sensually, around the outline of her lips. "Understand, sweetie?"

The hostage's eyes bugged out and she shook her head up and down, afraid now to make even the tiniest sound.

Lisa looked behind her at the hooks and bins in the toy aisle. There had to be something within reach that she could use…

"Alrighty then. Back to business." The thief locked eyes with the pharmacist. "Now, hand over all the New-C and we're outta here."

"We don't stock New-C here," the pharmacist said, repeating the street name for a highly addictive narcotic that sold illegally on the streets for almost ten bucks per pill, well above the already ridiculously high price charged by the drug manufacturer.

"You're lying," the thief said calmly.

"Didn't you see the sign on the door on the way in? The stores in our chain don't stock it. It's corporate policy."

The criminal narrowed his beady eyes. "I saw the sign, but I still think you're lying. I'm willing to bet her life—no, make that your life, on it." He aimed the gun towards the pharmacist.

"I swear, we don't have any—”

"Then you're useless to me," the criminal stated carelessly.

Lisa saw the muscles tense in the back of the thief's hand. She knew she had to make her move with whatever feeble supplies she'd grabbed from the toy bins. Now or never!

From her position on the floor, Lisa pressed her thumb against her finger to hold a string in place. She closed one eye. Lisa flicked her wrist. A wooden yo-yo cut through the air, aiming for the gunman's hand.

The gunman's finger twitched.

Bang!

At the exact moment the gun fired, the yo-yo hit its target—the bottom of the man's hand. The upward movement threw off his aim.

The bullet whizzed through the air towards the frightened pharmacist.

It missed the top of his head by a couple inches. The bullet hit the illuminated neon prescription sign featuring the classic mortar and pestle on the wall behind him. Sparks sputtered from the sign in several directions as smoke rose from it.

The thief's hostage screamed at the top of her lungs. So did the other customers on the floor.

Lisa jumped up. She knocked over the cough syrup display. It bonked the criminal on the head. Hundreds of plastic bottles rained down on him.

"What the hell is goin' on back there?" yelled the criminal holding the security guard and the cashier at gunpoint in the front of the store.

He'd made them sit on the floor back-to-back with their arms intertwined. The thief kept the gun firmly pointed in their direction while he glanced towards the back of the store, trying to make sense of the racket he could hear.

The thief in the back swore as he threw the cough syrup display off him. He stood up ready to do battle with the gun still in his grip.

Lisa karate-chopped his hand, sending the gun flying several aisles away.

He tried to backhand her across the face. Lisa blocked the blow with her forearm.

With her other hand, she pulled on his phony beard. She intended to swing him around by it. The fake beard slipped off his face. Unfortunately, the elastic strap broke. Lisa ended up with the entire beard in her hand. The pile of scraggly hair made it look like she just came from a sheep-shearing competition.

He lunged at her and swung his fist towards her face.

Lisa ducked and rolled out of the way. As she stood back up, she grabbed the metal legs of one of the pharmacy’s waiting area chairs.

Lisa did a complete 360-degree spin to gain momentum before she swung it towards him.

The thief raised his hands to protect his face.

Lisa aimed towards his legs instead. The impact knocked him off his feet.

He lay on the floor moaning. The thief held his knee saying, "You stupid bitch, I think you broke my knee cap."

Lisa rolled him over face down. She grabbed a beaded plastic jump rope from the toy aisle. She yanked the thief's hands behind his back and whipped the rope around his wrists several times. She pulled until he screamed out in pain. Then she knotted the rope twice.

The former hostages applauded.

Lisa told the pharmacist to call the police. She grabbed a bathroom scale from the shelf.

She handed it to the girl who had been the thief's main hostage. "If he moves before the police get here, whack him over the head with this."

"Thank you. You're amazing," the girl told her.

Meanwhile, the thief in the front heard the continued commotion in the back of the store. He could tell that things weren't going well for his partner. "Screw him!" he said, thinking aloud. He decided to cut his losses.

The thief kept his gun trained on the security guard and the cashier as he made his way to the front door. He pulled on the fire alarm lever.

The front door locks instantly snapped open. That was the two thieves' plan all along. As soon as they had the cash and the drugs, they would be able to escape from the locked pharmacy without needing the guard's help at the electronic keypad. Triggering the fire alarm was all they needed to do to get the doors open.

"Try to follow me and I'll shoot you," the thief warned the security guard.

The fire alarm blared behind him as the thief walked outside onto the crowded sidewalk. He instantly shed the fake beard, leaving it at the pharmacy doorstep as soon as he was out of range of the security cameras. As he walked away, he also took off and stuffed the Metropolis Crusaders hat into a Keep Urbana Beautiful trash container.

Inside the pharmacy, Lisa grabbed her plastic bags from the counter and headed for the exit.

"Aren't you going to wait for the police?" the security guard asked.

"No time for that," Lisa said as she hurried by him.

When she got outside, Lisa saw the discarded costume beard on the ground. She scanned the sidewalk in both directions, looking for the color and style of the sports cap. "He must have already taken it off," she commented aloud.

Lisa looked around for inspiration. She needed a better angle on the pedestrians.

"Taxi, miss?" the driver asked as she ran up to a waiting cab by the curb.

"Yes, but I just need to borrow it for a moment."

"Huh?" he asked with a puzzled look.

Lisa smiled as she removed her high heels and climbed on the hood of the taxi. So much for being inconspicuous!

"Nothing in this crazy city surprises me anymore," the cabbie said to himself as he sunk down in the seat, enjoying the view of Lisa's shapely legs.

From her observation post on the hood, Lisa looked both ways again. She studied the movement on the sidewalk, waiting for something to catch her eye.

There! She saw a man remove his hoodie. He tossed it down the steps of a subway entrance and kept walking.

By this point, the thief was half a block away from the pharmacy. He'd changed his appearance so much that even the security guard and cashier wouldn't be able to pick him out of the city crowd.

He hadn't counted on Lisa spying on him from her elevated position! She made a mental note of his short, spiky haircut with the faded sides so she could pick him out of the crowd again when she caught up to him on the sidewalk.

Lisa jumped down from the hood. She shoved her pumps into one of her shopping bags and sprinted down the street.

Lisa saw a uniformed beat cop. She couldn't help the gut reaction that caused her to hesitate for a fraction of a second before she approached him.

The dispatcher's voice blared from the cop's shoulder radio. "Repeat: Suspect wearing dark colored hoodie and Metropolis Crusaders cap. Had long beard, though presumed to be fake. Last seen exiting Fifth Avenue Pharmacy."

Lisa stopped the police officer. She pointed to the man with the short spiky hair. She said directly into the cop's ear. "That's one of the guys who just robbed the pharmacy."

The officer peered at him. "He doesn't fit the description at all, ma'am."

"Believe me, it's him. Just review the pharmacy security tapes and you'll see the thief holding the security guard at gunpoint. Then the thief takes a bite out of a candy bar and throws the rest away. I promise you the DNA on the candy bar matches that man right there."

"How do you know all this?"

"I was in the store during the robbery," Lisa admitted.

"Then come with me, you're a material witness." He reached to grab her arm, but Lisa was already gone. She disappeared into the crowd.

There was something about the urgency and sincerity in her voice that forced the police officer to act. He took the suspect in for questioning. Of course, it turned out that Lisa was correct.

The news was soon full of reports about the unknown woman who single-handedly thwarted the pharmacy robbery. Lisa breathed a sigh of relief when she also learned from those same news reports that, unknown to the thieves, the store security cameras had been shut down for maintenance.

That meant that there was no visual record of her exploits in front of the pharmacy counter.

* * *

A couple hours later, Lisa struggled with several overflowing shopping bags as she walked down the hallway of her apartment building. She managed to reach her own apartment door without dropping anything.

Lisa rattled the doorknob. In her hasty enthusiasm to get inside and rummage through the contents of the shopping bags, she momentarily forgot the door was locked.

Some of the bags almost slipped off her arms when she shifted them to free one hand enough to pat her pockets. Nothing there! "Not again," she mumbled.

The young lady looked around the hallway. Deserted! She took a step back away from the door and raised her high-heeled foot. Kick! The door flew open.

After readjusting her shopping bags, Lisa strolled in. She gently pushed the door closed behind her with the back of her elbow. The poor condition of the door indicated that she'd kicked it in like that before.

Looking back over her shoulder, Lisa watched a chunk of wood fall to the carpet and said aloud, "Oopsie moment!"

She plopped her bags on the counter next to her missing keys. Lisa picked them up, tossed the keys in the air and caught them. She stuffed them in her pocket commenting, "Confucius say: Don't leave home without them."

The various make-up supplies spilled out of the plastic shopping bags onto the kitchen table. Her well-manicured hand pressed the power button on her nearby iPod. The young woman sang and hummed along with the music as she worked.

Lisa kissed a tissue and held it up to examine the impression of her red lips. Then she used a wad of tissues to wipe off all the remaining lipstick.

After testing various new shades of lipstick on the back of her hand, she pointed to the ugliest one saying, "Perfection!" She whipped the lipstick tube around her mouth haphazardly.

She removed a jade heart pendant from her neck and flipped it over to read the engraved inscription on the gold-plated back. It said: To my daughter with love—2/5/84.

Lisa handled it lovingly before putting it down on the table. Then she reconsidered and slipped the chain and pendant back over her neck.

Next came the long, black hair which she twisted into a tight bun and then covered with a brown wig. Lisa flipped a hairbrush into the air.

She attacked the wig with the hairbrush in one hand and a can of hairspray in the other. Choking on a face full of hairspray didn't deter her from her mission.

After dipping her hand into a shallow cup of solution, her fingers emerged without their former pretty shade of nail polish. Lisa wiggled her fingers above the pile of cheap, costume jewelry.

"What will make just the right impression?" she asked aloud while grabbing oversized hoop earrings. She held up a necklace laden with charms and picked a (mis)matching bracelet.

Lisa grabbed a newspaper and computer printouts with employment ads she'd crossed out in red lipstick. She circled the one remaining, non-crossed out ad with the ugly lipstick color she was now wearing. The headline read: Telephone & Internet Psychics—No Experience Necessary.

She stood up from the table. Lisa reached into another shopping bag and pulled out a padded mu-mu with an unfashionable printed design.

The ugly garment easily slipped over her head. Patting the new lumps and bumps on her body, she observed, "Ah, this must be how the drag queens do it."

Lisa emptied one more bag and popped its content into her mouth. Her tongue explored the new addition—a mouthpiece that provided phony buck teeth.

"Well, let's see how that bitchy supervisor likes this…" Lisa finally dared to look at herself in the mirror. Even she blinked in horror when she got a glimpse of her own creation…a poor man's version of a Miss Cleo wannabe!

While tweaking the hideously teased brown-haired wig, the brush got stuck several times on the unevenly interwoven beads. Lisa poked the foam ripples under the mu-mu which made her look like the Pillsbury Dough Boy's girlfriend.

"Hmm, I'm going to need to be able to change in and out of this disguise a lot faster than that. I'll have to work on that," Lisa promised herself.

Her hand plunged into the mu-mu pocket and produced a homely pair of thick-lensed glasses. She popped them onto her face and looked in the mirror again. "Attention Kmart shoppers: meet Psychic Extraordinaire, Madame Lisa Loy!"

Meanwhile, nearby in downtown Urbana, the fifty-two-year-old owner of a small Korean market restocked a display of fresh gimbap near the front register. He knew his customers couldn't resist the delicious taste of the white rice seasoned with sesame oil and mixed with fresh meats and vegetables, all wrapped in seaweed.

Having no customers to chat with at the moment, he hummed to himself while he enjoyed the rare quiet time in the usually busy store. The bell over the front door rang.

The store proprietor turned to see the all-too-familiar face of Tyrell, a burly seventeen-year-old from the neighborhood. Tyrell had been streetwise since he was in diapers and wanted everyone to know it.

"Yo, Pops, what you got for me today?" asked Tyrell as he helped himself to one of the fresh pieces of gimbap.

"The usual," the Korean grocer replied.

Tyrell swallowed his unpaid for snack. "Yeah, about that—times are tough. We need to make a change—upwards." Tyrell rubbed his fingers together, indicating cash.

"I can't afford to pay anymore," the grocer said. He maintained a proud and steady voice, but his eyes betrayed his desperation.

Tyrell swatted a display of wrapped snack foods. It crashed to the floor. Bags of dried noodles crunched to dust as Tyrell stomped on them. "You can't afford not to pay any more," Tyrell informed him.

The store owner watched helplessly as Tyrell swung a revolving metal greeting card rack. He kicked it over. The metal made a racket as it slammed to the floor. Cards slid out in several directions.

Tyrell looked the older man square in the face. "How much would it cost you if the market looked like this every morning when you arrived?"

"I remember when you were a little boy and you'd come in here with your mother. You were so polite and—”

"Yeah, yeah, save it for my E! True Hollywood Story, OK? Right now, pay up, old man." Tyrell held his hand out.

Reluctantly, the grocer reached into the cash register.

"Speed it up, I got a boss to report to," Tyrell barked as he grabbed the cash from the trembling hands of the Korean store owner.

"You're under new management now," said a deep voice belonging to Rocco, a previously unseen man who stepped out from behind a display in an aisle. The handsome thirty-two-year-old folded his arms in a tough and determined stance.

Whether actually unimpressed or just wanting to come across that way, Tyrell dismissed him saying, "I don't take no orders from guys who are tall, dark, and cheaply dressed."

Rocco focused on the point at hand. "You need to give the store owner his money back."

Tyrell threw a dollar bill at Rocco's feet. "Here's a buck. Go buy yo'self a clue."

"Who do you work for?" Rocco asked.

"You first, tough guy."

Rocco moved his open jacket and flashed the badge on his belt. "I'm Detective Rocco DiGiovanni. Urbana PD."

The bell over the front door rang as three customers walked in. Tyrell used the distraction to his advantage. He knocked a display of soda bottles towards Rocco.

The bottles bounced and crashed to the floor. Some broke open, soaking Rocco's shoes in a bubbling mess of carbonation.

Tyrell ran. He knocked the customers over and out of his way as he blew out the door.

Rocco chased him onto the crowded sidewalk. His head pivoted back and forth, scanning the area to see which way the perp had gone. He took off in the direction where the most movement and disturbance in the crowd caught his eye.

Chasing someone through the populous downtown sidewalks of Urbana was like attempting a parkour challenge. The urban obstacle course presented a number of problems for both of them.

A woman pushing a baby carriage strolled directly into Tyrell's way. Tyrell leaped into the air. Although he gave the mother quite a fright, he jumped over the carriage without even waking the sleeping infant. He landed on his feet and kept running.

Two construction workers carried a long steel beam across the sidewalk towards a half-finished building. Rocco figured by the time he got to their spot, they would have moved just far enough that he could run around them without going in the street. Unfortunately, the construction workers stopped at the last possible moment when one of them shifted the weight of the beam from one shoulder to the other.

They had the sidewalk completely blocked. Foot traffic was building up on both sides of them. Rocco ducked like he was in a limbo competition on a cruise. Several women on the sidewalk cheered as Rocco worked his way under the beam without stopping.

Tyrell cut through a side alley. He tripped down some stairs. He scrambled back to his feet and ran on until he re-emerged on the next block.

The young man bolted across a busy intersection. Rocco followed close behind. The two men zigzagged through the heavy traffic.

Cars screeched to a stop at odd angles trying to avoid hitting the cop and his perp. A minivan spun out of control. It sideswiped a street vendor's cart. A volcano of fruit erupted all over the street and passersby.

A station wagon clipped Rocco's legs. The impact knocked him off his feet. He rolled over the vehicle's hood.

A couple blocks away, Lisa proudly walked down the sidewalk in her outrageous psychic get-up. People shot her classic "What's up with that crazy bitch?" looks. She soldiered on.

Looking ahead, Lisa saw Rocco roll across the station wagon's hood. His ability to land safely on the ground and take off running again impressed her. She also took note of Rocco's police badge flashing in the sun.

Lisa nonchalantly bent down to pretend to tie her shoes. She looked over the rim of her huge plastic-framed glasses. Tyrell's arms pumped like a madman as he ran as fast as he could away from the cop—right in her direction.

She waited for Tyrell to get closer. She timed it perfectly. Just as he ran by, she stood up and slammed into him sideways. Tyrell tumbled and lost his balance. He crashed into a pile of trash barrels. The poor dude never knew what (or who) hit him.

Lisa smiled to herself and hurried out of sight into a nearby building.

Rocco caught up with Tyrell. Standing over him, and half out of breath, the detective started to speak. Tyrell beat him to it. "What the hell happened?"

Rocco looked around for an explanation. He pointed to large tree roots disrupting the sidewalk, posing a major safety hazard. "You must have tripped."

Clink! Click! Rocco slapped the handcuffs on Tyrell.