The Last Guardian (Ch. 4)

( Every character in this story is a legal adult over the age of 18 )

The Last Guardian

Chapter 4

Lana held a hanger at arm’s length and studied the shirt. It was sky-blue and sleeveless, with tiny beads running up the collar. She tried to imagine herself in it. She turned the hanger, shook her head, and put it back.

“Not a fan?” asked Harry, leaning against the next rack. He had been watching her the whole time and smiling amusedly as she dug through rack after rack.

Lana shrugged and pawed through a set of t-shirts. “Too sparkly,” she said. “I try not to stand out too much.”

Harry shook his head with a smile on his face, pulled out a lime green hoodie, and held it up to his own chest. “How about this one?”

Lana gave him a once-over. “You’d look like a tennis ball. Besides, that’s for a girl,” she said with an amused smile. Harry snorted and put the hoodie back on the rack. 

The store was packed with end-of-summer shoppers. There were bored kids, annoyed parents, and at least one mother arguing about the cost of jeans near the dressing rooms. Lana ignored them. She snuck a peek at Harry while he wasn’t looking. He was more relaxed now, less guarded than he’d been in Smallville. There was a lightness in his step that she liked.

She pulled a few more shirts off the rack, draping them over her arm. “How are you not bored?” she asked. “You haven’t picked out anything for yourself.”

“I don’t need much,” Harry said. “And anything I do need, I can make myself.” Harry had shown her exactly how he could make clothes for himself when she asked if he had any belongings. 

Lana huffed. “That’s so not fair.”

“I suppose not, but it’s way more convenient … so I’m not going to complain,” Harry said, checking the prices on some of these clothes. 

He looked down at his current outfit. He wore white trainers, dark jeans, and a thin black jacket. “Do these clothes look normal?” he asked, and opened up his jacket for her to see. Underneath, he wore a thin t-shirt. He looked good, though Lana didn’t say it out loud.

“They look just as good as the stuff sold in here,” she told him. Lana found a dark skirt and held it up against her waist, twisting to look at her reflection in the mirror. “Be honest,” she said. “Do I look like a school principal?”

Harry stepped closer and eyed her up and down. He didn’t say anything for a good five seconds, which was five seconds longer than most boys could manage. “You look,” he said, and stopped. His mouth curled into a small smirk. “Very unprincipal-like. I think you may get expelled for making the male teachers nervous.”

Lana burst out laughing. Harry had a way of breaking her tension in half. She tossed the skirt into her pile and poked his side with the hanger. “You’re terrible,” she said, and heard him good-naturedly chuckle. 

“Tell me again why you’re not going to school with me?” she asked.

Harry shrugged and followed her into the next aisle, where a wall of denim waited. “They won’t let me, will they? I have no records, no Social Security … Hell, I don’t even have a birth certificate. I shouldn’t even exist here.” He said that last part in a whisper. 

Lana bit her lip. “I really wish you could come to school with me.” Now that Chloe was dead, and she and Clark had ended things, she had a feeling that it might get a bit lonely at Smallville High this year. 

"Just because I'm not going to school with you doesn't mean I won't see you all the time. You're my only friend, remember?" Harry plucked a pair of jeans off the rack and held them up. He didn’t say it, but he thought that these would look good on her. He put them back as she flipped through the rack. 

Lana shot him a look, but there was no hiding her smile. "So you're just going to follow me around like a lost puppy?"

He shot her a boyish smile. “Probably … until you tell me to go away." Lana chuckled and continued to look through the rack. When she found everything she needed, she tried them on in the dressing room. After that, she put over half of them on a stack of clothes on a nearby table and started toward the front register. Harry trailed close behind. "You really don’t need anything, do you?" she asked.

"I don't," Harry said, voice dropping to a whisper. "But when I do, you’ll be the first to know." Lana had been trying to get him to let her buy him some clothes. 

Lana shot him another look, but her cheeks were pink this time. She was about to say something, but the woman at the register waved her forward. The checkout line was mercifully short, and the bored college-age girl scanned Lana’s things with machine efficiency.

"Did you find everything you needed?" the clerk asked, glancing between them.

Lana nodded. "I did, thanks."

"That's good. You qualify for the new-customer discount. Five percent off." The clerk had a drawl that managed to sound both exhausted and cheerful. She bagged up the clothes, handed over the receipt, and smiled at Harry for a little too long. "You two have a nice day."

Outside, the parking lot was damp from a late morning sprinkle, but the sun had come back out. Lana stopped just under the awning and let the sunlight warm her shoulders. Beside her, Harry’s nose wrinkled. “What’s wrong?” Lana asked. Harry shook his head. 

“Nothing. It’s just that the city smells bad,” Harry told her, and Lana smiled knowingly. 

“Because of your powerful nose?” she asked in a teasing voice. Harry had explained his highly developed senses to her. 

“Yeah. The old schnozola is really starting to tingle,” Harry said, rubbing his nose. 

"Let’s go,” Lana snorted.

They started walking. The bus station was only three blocks away, and Lana set a brisk pace, shoulders squared and head up. Harry kept to her left, half a step behind. “I really hope they’ve finished my car.” Lana had taken it to a local shop to have her oil and brake pads changed. 

He glanced at her. "Do you want me to carry that?"

She shook her head. "No, but you can distract me. I always get depressed after spending that much money. Retail therapy is a lie."

"I can distract you," Harry said, "but you have to trust me."

He stopped her at the end of the block, right where an alley cut between two buildings. The alley was empty except for a few blue recycling bins and a single black cat stretched out on a warm patch of pavement. "Close your eyes," Harry said.

Lana raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"An exercise in trust"

She rolled her eyes but shut them anyway. She felt him touch her elbow, steering her a few steps into the shadow. "You're not going to do anything weird, right?"

"Define weird."

She elbowed him. He laughed, then the air around them snapped cold for a heartbeat, and then everything went silent. There was no traffic, no birds, no bakery noise. Lana’s skin prickled with goosebumps.

She opened her eyes. "Harry?"

The world was green. Not literally, but every edge shimmered, and for a second, her vision blurred. Harry was there, holding her hand, and when the green light evaporated, it was replaced by the familiar sight of her apartment inside the Talon. Lana’s mouth dropped open. "How …"

"Trade secret," Harry said, letting go of her hand. Lana’s legs felt rubbery, but she managed to stand. She dropped the bags at her feet and brushed the hair from her face. 

She stared at her room. It was exactly as she had left it. "Did we just… teleport?"

"Back home, we called it Apparition. This was just an upgraded version of that," Harry tried to explain. 

She gaped at him. "Can you do that with anybody?"

Harry shrugged. “Pretty much.”

Lana stabilized herself and picked up her bags. “It’s definitely a useful trick.”

“It beats riding the smelly bus,” Harry said. The bus ride to Metropolis had smelled awful. Harry still wasn’t desensitized to the strong smells he was now experiencing.  

Harry looked around. The apartment was clean and tidy. Sunlight spilled across the scuffed hardwood, and the air smelled faintly of vanilla. Lana set her shopping bag down on the table and kicked off her shoes. Harry wandered to the window and looked out at the empty street. He seemed perfectly content. Lana broke the silence. "So if you’re not going to school, what are you going to do with your time?"

Harry turned, his hands in his pockets. "Probably get a job."

She waited for him to keep going, but he didn’t. "Doing what?"

He shrugged, then picked up the little metal pencil holder on her desk. One of the legs was bent out of shape, there was a dent on the side, and the metal finish was fairly scuffed. Harry picked it up, and the pencil holder burned green. The legs instantly straightened, the dent ballooned out, and the metal surface became glossy and smooth. "Fixing things," he said. "Apparently, I’m pretty good at that. I thought I’d sell the stuff for cheap and help people out."

Lana was about to tease him, but then remembered his situation. For someone who’d landed here with nothing, it was a plan. "That’s kind of sweet," she said.

Harry smiled cutely at her, which made her stomach do a little flip. "It’s not saving the world, but it’s something. I can’t rescue cute girls from falling planes every day, you know?"

Lana smiled at him and flopped onto the couch. She picked up a magazine and absently flipped through it, not reading the words. Harry joined her, perching on the armrest. An easy, comfortable silence fell over the room. The low hum of the refrigerator was the only noise. "I’d still prefer you come to school with me," Lana stated after a few seconds.

"Can’t," Harry said. "Not unless you want me to magic up a Social Security number." He then scooted over and dropped into the seat next to her. Lana scooted closer without even thinking. She didn’t stop until her shoulder bumped into his arm. 

She laughed. "Could you actually do that?"

Harry thought about it for a second before shrugging. “To be honest, I have no idea. I could make the physical card easily enough, but it’s more than that. Isn’t all that information stored on computers?”

“Yeah, in large government databases,” Lana confirmed as she looked at his handsome face. 

“I don’t know … maybe I could. My powers are really strange, and I don’t really know the limit of them,” Harry admitted. 

Lana thought about it for a second and jumped off the couch. She darted into her room and returned holding several items. She handed over her birth certificate, Social Security card, and driver’s license. Harry examined them and held up her driver’s license to examine it closely. He slowly turned to her with an eyebrow raised. “Did you go straight to the DMV from an overnight bender or something?” he asked teasingly. Lana snatched the card from his grip.

“Stop making fun of me!” she said, trying not to smile. “The picture’s horrible, I know.”

“Why is one of your eyes all wonky?”

“Harry!” she exclaimed, playfully smacking his muscled thigh. Harry chuckled and pulled it from between her fingers. He held the card up to his eyes and concentrated. The card flared green, and Lana’s picture morphed before their very eyes. In less than a second, the Lana Lang on the driver’s license looked like a supermodel. Her hair was perfect, her makeup was spot on, and her smile was flawlessly beautiful. The most important thing was that both of her eyes were equally open now. Harry nodded, liking what he saw, and handed it back to her. Lana took the card and gasped. 

“Oh, my gosh! Thank you!” she said, ecstatic to no longer have to be embarrassed to hand over her ID. Harry smiled. He looked comfortable, sitting there, like he belonged in this life. Lana thought about how quickly she’d gotten used to him being around. “Now, try to make one for yourself. Concentrate first on making the card, then concentrate on adding the information to the government database,” Lana told him. Harry looked at the beautiful girl and saw that she was totally serious. He watched her eyes, shining with anticipation, and felt the expectation like a weight on his chest. She looked … hopeful. He took a deep breath and picked up her driver’s license. The plastic felt oddly alive under his fingers, as if it were still tingling from his power.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked, still turning the card over in his hand. “Isn’t this, I dunno, a felony?”

“I’m not asking you to rob a bank. I just want you to be able to be yourself, and make it so the rest of the world can see it too.” Lana’s voice was unwavering and determined.

He exhaled, then focused. The green light sparked inside him. He pictured the license in his hand, down to the microprint, the watermark, the ghostly second photo in the bottom corner. He imagined the same card, but with his face, his stats, his… what, exactly? He wasn’t even sure what year it was here? He went with his regular birthday, but changed the year to the same as Lana’s. July 31, 1986.

The card warmed, then vibrated. There was a flash of green light, and then a twin card appeared in his other hand, perfectly identical except for the photo. Harry looked at the picture of himself. His jawline was sharp, and his hair was messy. He checked the signature, then the address. Lana had lived in her aunt’s farmhouse before, so he listed that as his place of residence. “Looks good so far,” he told her. 

He smiled, then moved to the Social Security card. This one was trickier. He’d never seen one before. He examined the texture of it, the slightly fuzzy blue print, and the odd little ridges along the edge. He called out to his powers, which hummed up his arm like a static charge. He copied the card, added his own details, and conjured up a random nine-digit number that, in the moment, felt entirely plausible. Harry didn’t even think of a number. He put his whole faith into his powers. 

The birth certificate was the easiest. This one responded so quickly, he barely had time to register the change. He now had three documents, laid out in a row. Lana stared, then picked them up one at a time, inspecting every detail with a practiced eye. “You could charge for this, you know,” she said, joking. “Like a green ghost notary. You could even wear a little suit and bowtie.” The news was still going on about the green ghost that had saved the doomed plane. 

He rolled his eyes. “I’m good, thanks.”

Lana grinned and tucked her cards back into her purse. “Now, for the hard part.”

Harry cocked an eyebrow. “I thought that was the hard part.”

She shook her head. “Nope. The records have to exist somewhere. The government, the DMV, the credit bureaus… they have to believe in you, or the cards are just paper and plastic. Can you …” She made a vague, upward gesture. “You know… hack reality?”

He sat back, closing his eyes. This was more than conjuring a coin or fixing a tractor. It meant reaching out far and wide, finding all the hidden places where information was stored, and giving them a little nudge. He gave himself up to the power and let the images flash through his mind in a haze of green. The DMV database, with its vast servers and blinking lights .... He pictured the SSA, the census, the tangled knot of digital and physical records that held this country together. He could sense the green ring inside him, questing outward, seeking every weak spot.

“Here it goes,” he muttered, letting the vast knowledge of the ring inside of him guide his thoughts. He focused on his new identity … Harry James Potter, born July 31, 1986, currently residing in Smallville, Kansas, perfect credit, one prior speeding ticket for the sake of realism. He felt the power spool out, a gentle thread of light reaching far and wide. It slipped through the tangled mass of servers and hard drives. For a moment, the entire apartment shivered, and the edges of reality felt blurry. The three cards in Lana’s purse glowed faintly, then faded. A second later, the cable box under her TV reset. The lights blinked out and then slowly came back on. Harry let go and slumped back into the couch, his breathing strained. It was actually much harder than he thought. 

“Well?” Lana’s voice was anxious

.

He shrugged. “I think it worked?”

She grinned so wide it threatened to split her face. “Let’s go check.”

He tried to protest, but she was already halfway to the door, keys in hand. She didn’t even wait for him to stand. She just looped her hand around his wrist, pulled him up, and towed him down the stairs. They walked three blocks to the Smallville Savings and Loan. Lana stopped him outside the front door and turned to face him. “If you can open a checking account, you exist in the system. If you can’t …” she stopped, trying to think of something that would brighten his spirit.  “I’ll buy you an ice cream.”

Harry grinned. “I’d rather have ice cream, honestly.”

She elbowed him. “Try.”

They entered together, the air thick with the smell of new carpet and printer toner. There was only one teller, a woman with streaked blonde hair. “Can I help you?” she asked, eyes darting from Harry’s face to his white shoes and back.

“Yes,” Lana said brightly. “My friend just moved here and needs to set up a checking account.”

Harry handed over his freshly minted license and Social Security card. The woman looked them over with the patience of someone who’d seen every scam under the sun, then sighed and began typing at her keyboard. Harry felt sweat bead under his collar.

“So, Mr. Potter,” she said, drawing out the last syllable. “Let’s see… just moved here, huh?”

He nodded. “Moved here for the corn.”

She snorted, but she kept typing. There was a pause as she ran the license through her little scanner. “Mother’s maiden name?”

Harry didn’t miss a beat. “Evans.”

The woman checked, then double-checked, then looked at him with a faint hint of respect. “Your documentation’s in order. We can get you an account, but you’ll need to deposit at least twenty dollars.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out ten five-dollar bills. He handed them over to her. Harry then filled out the forms. The woman stamped everything with blue ink, then handed him a temporary debit card and a pamphlet about internet banking. “Welcome to Smallville,” she said, with a generic smile.

Harry pocketed the card and they left, walking back into the bright Kansas sun. The sky was bright blue and cloudy, and the air was filled with the scents of baking bread and fresh-mown grass. Lana was beside herself. “It worked!” She threw her arms around his waist and squeezed. “You actually did it! This is amazing.”

His cheeks heated up from the sudden close contact. “It’s just a bank account, Lana.”

She shook her head, her hair catching the sunlight. “No, it’s not. It’s the first step. Now you can come to school with me. Meet people. Be normal.”

He doubted that last part, but he let her have the moment. She was so happy that it radiated off her like the perfume she was wearing. Harry let her drag him down Main Street, through the growing noise of the day. She was still hugging him around the waist when she said, “We’ll sign you up tomorrow. I’ll help with the paperwork.”

He rolled his eyes, but couldn’t help smiling.