Excerpt: Shimmer by Miranda Sparks

Blurb
To friends and family there is nothing remarkable about Justin Cade. Seeing only an awkward, sometimes isolated high school sophomore they would never suspect that he lives a double life as Milestone City’s protector: the holographic heroine known as Glimmer Girl.Juggling school, superherodom and his own skewed sense of self Justin starts down the road of transition into Kaira. Though the path isn’t easy and is fraught with peril, both as a hero as a mere mortal.

A Peek Inside

It seems nowadays like every city in America has its own hometown hero. True, some are bigger than others, but nobody gets into this for the fame. Well, maybe a few, but not me.

If you’ve ever been to or heard of Milestone City you might have heard of my exploits. I’m kind of hard to miss a lot of the time: I’m the blond girl in the gold and orange costume with the miniskirt, the tall golden boots and the big capital ‘G’ on her chest stylized to look like a beam of light, burning brightly as I soar across the sky like a one woman laser light show. That kind of thing tends to stand out.

There are a lot of names given to me by fans, newspapers and media outlets such as the ‘Holographic Heroine’ or the ‘Lady of Light’ just to name a couple. Not a lot of people take me seriously but I still do my part kicking ass, taking names and saving the world one busted bad guy skull at a time. It’s what I do, and for the most part people are grateful.

This day was going to be no different. I’d received the call that a powerful metavillain named Leon Marco aka ‘the Carbon Man’ was making a large illicit withdrawal from the First City National Bank in Midtown, right in broad daylight! There was no way I was going to let that slip past my notice.

I streaked through the air faster than a speeding jet. The Bonnie Frank Bridge, Centenary Park, the InfiniTech Building all flew by in a blink. Gravity had no hold on me, I was completely free to move in the world, and with these powers I was unstoppable.

Lingering on high I could see the police barricade surrounding the building. All paths in and out were sealed until Marco decided otherwise. In other words it looked like I had a wait on my hands. A part of me wanted to crack the walls myself, but that would have been dangerous, more so for others than myself. This was serious, after all: there were hostages inside and probably lives on the line.

“Come on,” I groaned. “How long does it take to clean out a vault?”

With all the subtlety of a brick to the face the Carbon Man exploded from his refuge in a cloud of black smoke. A hail of bullets bounced off the near indestructible super-dense shell encasing his body. He strolled by and ignored the lead pellets as though they were nothing more than a gentle summer shower.

An enthusiastic grin crossed my lips of hard golden light. “I am going to kick this guy’s ass!”

My name is Glimmer Girl. I’m a superhero, and this is my story.

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