Supers
Supers
by Maggie Womersley
I’m on a beach surrounded by faces. Wherever I look there are people, mostly young like me, but some older ones carrying children. Unlike me, they are all dressed for the weather in swimwear, sarongs and cheap straw hats bought from the wandering beach sellers. Their sunglasses reflect the white glare of the sun, their teeth glint as they smile at each other. I can see their laughter and their happy expectation. It’s going to be a great day, these faces say; there will be music and sunshine and togetherness. And I really hope they’re right, because if the man who’s come to kill them is here, I haven’t found him yet.
It’s not quite the middle of the afternoon but there is already music coming from the far end of the beach. I aim my binoculars, scanning the glitter of the sea and the multi-coloured mass of the gathering crowd. Beautiful girls in bikinis sway past, so close I can smell the coconut oil on their skin, lads swagger behind, admiring the view. There are cool hippie mums with babies tucked into slings, guys pulling trollies heaped with beach gear. All colours, all nationalities. I hear their different languages, smell their street food, and sift through their faces – each and every one of them.
A little girl wearing face paint and butterfly wings bumps into my legs. I bend down to catch her before she falls, scanning her face with its button nose and smears of glitter. A moment later a man picks her up and puts her on his shoulders, smiling at me. His face is like hers, I can tell they’re related. Then they’re gone, diving back into the crowd, the kid twisting round to take a last curious look at me - the pale girl in the wrong clothes holding binoculars.
Jaz, the organiser, told us they were expecting sixteen thousand today. “It’s been sold out for weeks,” she said, face going pale under the fake tan, pupils dilating with shock. The headline act and his entourage have arrived, the live stream starts in ten minutes, and the local police have told us that there is no way they can clear the beach without a major incident being declared. And for that they need more evidence than a fuzzy image lifted from some three-year-old CCTV. That little meeting happened about an hour ago and apart from my handler, Paul, I’d never met any of the others before. But I recognised Jaz. Two years ago, she was on the same train as me, watching roller-bladers on YouTube. Two years ago, Jaz had braids and a different nose, but I still recognised her.
‘Small World,’ Ellie says in my ear, and to let her know I’ve heard I make our secret ‘Sisters Forever’ sign behind my back.
“Anything?” Paul, says, for what must be the sixtieth time in as many minutes.
“Nope,” I reply.
“We should go back to the mobile unit and check the camera feeds again. Maybe you missed something.” He has a distracting way of positioning himself directly behind me so that he’s out of view but practically breathing down my neck. I’ve asked him not to do this, but he always forgets. I think he’s trying to keep out of my ‘super gaze’ as he calls it, but it just feels creepy.
“No,” I reply. “If he’s on the beach now, it’s too late for the CCTV.”
Paul shifts position, sweating under his leather jacket. I can tell he’s feeling the pressure even worse than I am. This is our first job in the field, and I’m getting strong vibes that he doesn’t like this new phase in his career – babysitting a freaky science experiment. At least he’s got a bottle of water - I left mine in the car.
“Do you want to see the picture again?” he says, reaching inside that leather jacket he loves so much.
I shake my head and take a baby step away from him. As I move I look at the faces all around us, taking in each one, running it through my memory, then casting it into the imaginary filing cabinet Ellie invented. The face I need to match floats in a different part of my memory. If I close my eyes I can see it in acute detail – its’s the most important face in my entire world – at least for today.
If I had to write down a description of it, or any human face for that matter, I would need a week and a lot of pens. Words don’t even touch the surface when it comes to conveying the intricacies held in every human face - and worse luck for the police I’m rubbish at drawing. So, let’s just say it’s the face of a man, about thirty years old, European, light-coloured eyes, pinky-orange skin tone, pale eyelashes to match white-blonde cropped hair, a pattern of moles like a constellation of stars on the left cheek, a chicken pox scar on the right, clean-shaven. We think his name is Friderick. It means ‘Peaceful and Powerful’, which is ironic considering why we’re here now. I Googled it for Ellie on the way here - she’s always more interested than me in the people behind the faces.
My name is Mae Thornhill, I’m seventeen-years-old and I’m a super recogniser. It’s a real scientific thing, you can look it up on the internet if you don’t believe me. Recently, some scientists worked out that the average human brain can remember up to five thousand faces during a typical lifetime, but that a super recogniser can recognise ten times that amount, and in some freak cases - me for example - fifty times. You might think that sounds like a pretty cool talent to have; a fun party-trick, a super-power - but in case you didn’t catch what I just said, let me remind you – it’s official – I’m a freak.