How to Save the World (13 page)

I opened my mouth. I didn't exactly know what was going to come out, other than something sarcastic. But as my luck would have it, Raze ceased kicking Toadicus and walked over to the bar, stopping me before I could speak. “Sal!” she called. “Seriously, it's not fair to cut me off so early. I want—­”

“Shut up,” Tamara said, her voice rising to a roar. She turned, hand up to knock Raze back with her weird telekinetic powers.

Raze turned and shot her in the face.

I saw the little flash of her green-­and-­gold pain gun and instinctively flinched, years of being the target of the same gun working out in my favor. I was close enough to hear the crackle of the bolt striking Tamara's cheekbone. She jerked back, her grip loosening, and I dove out of her grasp. I didn't bother with grace. Instead, I scuttled back like a crab, desperate to put as much distance between me and the scary supervillain as possible.

Tamara wiped at her cheek and swung toward Raze, homicide in her eyes. “You little—­”

Raze's rocket boots kicked on, propelling her out of range of Tamara's swipe. Telekinetic force buffeted against the walls, rattling the window blinds. Raze darted about like a persistent frog dressed in outdated clothes. “Do you know how hard it is getting her to return a fight? Do you, huh? Do you?”

With Tamara distracted, I bolted for Linda. She still had Guy trapped in the stretched-­out rope of her arm, which was coiled around him like an anaconda. I lunged for them. Right as I did, Guy stomped hard on her instep and brought the back of his head smashing into her face. They both reeled a little.

I punched her hard in the midsection. It was like driving my fist into rubbery foam: way too much give. “Eugh,” I said.

Either way, it was enough for Guy to break free, shoving Linda away so that she rolled behind a stool. His eyes went wide and he tackled me to the ground. A second later, gunshots echoed, sounding like explosions and making the ground beneath us reverberate. Wood splintered and flew as I gawked at a hole in the wall right where my head had been.

Common sense kicked in. I shoved Guy behind the bar, ignoring his yelp of surprise, and rolled after him. “Is it just me,” I said, “or is using a gun cheating?”

“Definitely cheating. Effective cheating.” Guy shoved his hair out of his eyes. The bar wouldn't protect either of us for long, but we remained crouched there for a second. Over our heads, Tamara continued to ventilate the walls of Mind the Boom.

Raze dropped down on my other side, looking grumpy. She clicked her tongue, and pulled out a fist-­sized green sphere from her jean jacket. “Should've let me have another lemon shot,” she said, like Sal was somehow at fault for all of this. She tossed the green thing carelessly over her shoulder, so that it arced over the bar top and into the main seating area.

A second later, the walls shuddered. The air turned vaguely cyan for a moment.

Tamara blasted a bottle of vodka off the shelf in retaliation.

One of Linda's creepy too-­long arms snaked over the side of the bar. I shoved Guy out of the way, grabbed a jar of olives, and smashed it down on her fingers. A hiss of pain erupted from the other side of the bar as Linda drew her hand back. Juice dripped everywhere.

“Tamara wants you alive, I think,” Guy said. “So we've got that going for us.”

“The part where we're literally in a shootout with supervillains in a supervillain bar, not so much.”

“Well,” Guy said, his smile pulling to one side, “you can't have everything, I guess.”

Inexplicably, even with terror making it difficult to see straight and expensive alcohol exploding all around us, I wanted to laugh. “I love you,” I said.

His eyes lit up. “Ditto.”

Raze rolled her eyes at us, breaking the moment. Whatever. It was romantic. “You might not have everything,” she said, “but you do have me.”

And with that said, she began to pull a frightening amount of weaponry out of her jacket and boots, disregarding the laws of physics. Guns, tasers, shock sticks, little green grenades, vials, pressurized needles, all of it formed a pile while Tamara continued to unload into the walls. It felt like a tantrum by this point. Raze turned to us with a wicked grin. “Take your pick.”

I reached for one of her ray guns. Raze's frigid fingers latched around my wrist and jerked me back. “This does
not
make me a do-­gooder,” she said. “I am doing this in the hope that you will show up for a real hero-­villain fight someday, and you can't do that if you're dead.”

“Razor X, you are the baddest villain I know,” I said.

Raze preened and pulled a different gun out of the pile. “Take this one, it's got better reverb.”

“Thank you,” I said, and Raze wrinkled her nose at the courtesy.

Angélica had not actually trained me on much weaponry that wasn't a bo staff or nunchucks, but it wasn't like I had much of a choice now. We were pinned down, Guy didn't have his usual fortitude, strength, or ability to heal, and Tamara wasn't leaving without me. So I took a deep breath, looked over the ray gun to make sure there wasn't a safety (there was, which startled me), and readied myself. I peeked over the counter and fired off two quick zaps. They missed Linda by half an inch and destroyed a potted plant in the corner. I dropped back down and winced. I hoped Sal wasn't too attached to that fern.

Rather than choosing a weapon of his own, Guy looked around, craning his neck.

“What are you looking for?” I asked as Raze laid down a blast of purple fire.

He pointed.

It took me a second to realize he wasn't pointing at an outdated Supervillain of the Month calendar, but at the little red box next to it. “The fire alarm, really?”

“You think Davenport won't pay attention if the fire alarm goes off in a known supervillain bar?”

“That is a really good point.”

“Think you can cover me?”

“I think Raze has us covered,” I said, since she was grinning and chucking every weapon in her arsenal at Tamara and Linda. They weren't firing back as often, but they were still making their presence known with the occasional shattered bottle of fancy tequila.

“Wish me luck,” Guy said, swooping in and stealing a kiss.

“Ew,” Raze called over an explosion from one of her cyan-­grenades.

Guy crawled across the area behind the bar on his belly, wincing occasionally at the shattered glass. I doubled my efforts to try and hit Linda with the ray gun, letting Raze deal with Tamara. She was the one who'd pissed her off, after all. And I really didn't want to add Tamara Diesel to my personal list of enemies, though I figured she'd already seen to that. Dammit, I was actually trying to stay out of the Davenport world and live something of a normal life. Getting into a gunfight with supervillains over a substance that could change the entire superhero community was the core definition of not doing that. No wonder Jessie had said I should never want to save the world. It was kind of a pain in the ass.

Guy finally reached the fire alarm. I nudged Raze, jerking my chin at the fire alarm and then back at the unseen Linda and Tamara.

But Raze frowned. “Really? You'd do that to Sal?”

“Raze. We've already destroyed half of her bar.”

Raze looked around at all of the holes in the wall, the wood splinters and glass on the floor, and nodded. “You may have a point. Very well. The loud one is mine—­you take the slinky one.”

“I thought all of you supervillains knew each other's names,” I said, squinting at her. Guy gave us a
hurry up and do it already
look.

Raze, unexpectedly, began to tear up, which was always weird to see with her overlarge eyes.

“What?” I asked, impatient now. “What is it?”

“You—­you called me a
super
villain.”

“Raze.”

She snapped to attention. “Right, yes. Protect the overgrown ginger. Got it.”

When I signaled, Guy surged up to yank the fire alarm, and Raze and I rose up to lay down a blanket of cover fire for him. I heard a very un-­villain-­like yelp as Linda dove to safety, but Tamara didn't even flinch. She continued to shoot not at us, but at Guy. I saw her hit the wall next to him in slow motion, then an inch closer, and then—­

Raze's blast hit her in the wrist and the shot went wide, missing Guy completely and hitting a black box on the wall I hadn't noticed. Sparks exploded outward and foul-­smelling smoke began to spew. An instant later, Guy's fingers closed around the lever of the fire alarm. Loud, piercing shrills broke out, so deafening that all of us clapped our hands over our ears.

Another scatter of sparks shot into the air, and Mind the Boom flickered and changed.

The weathered booths meant to look like driftwood suddenly became dark and scarred, broken in half time and again and clearly fixed haphazardly. The stool legs were all bent crookedly, the metal dinged up and rusty, the fabric covered in duct tape. Scorch marks covered the walls at almost regular intervals. A gigantic hole clearly caused by a fireball had been boarded over with obviously new wood. Every piece of nautical décor vanished. The photographs on the Hostage Girl wall remained the same, but the corkboard beneath them had warped like it had been too close to the aforementioned fireball. Apparently I wasn't the only one shocked: all of us stood up and looked around, gaping.

It looked like a place you'd expect dangerous supervillains to hang out, actually.

There was a loud
thwack
and all of us jolted in surprise. A blink, and I was looking at the regular Mind the Boom, with its cheesy nautical aesthetic. Sal, looking well and truly grumpy, stood next to the black box that Tamara had hit, holding the broom she'd just whacked it with. “Are you
done
?” Sal asked in a tone that dripped with acid.

“No.” Tamara turned and fired off a single shot.

Raze whimpered.

“No!” I dove at her as she crumpled. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sal and Guy duck out of the way, but I focused on Raze, who'd curled up, one hand clutched around her shoulder. She hissed out a variety of swearing that didn't sound like any language I knew.

“Raze—­Raze, are you okay?”

Sal was suddenly there, pushing me away and yanking off her over-­shirt to help stop the blood flow. She had a cluster of raised horizontal scars on her shoulder, but that was probably par for the course for a supervillain barkeep. “Focus on getting the morons out of my bar,” she said without looking at me.

Raze let out a little mewl of pain.

I tossed Guy a ray gun and turned, anger boiling in my midsection. There wasn't really any way I could damage Tamara, but in that moment, I wanted to. Raze was
my
enemy, not hers. The only one allowed to fight her was me.

And god, I really needed to stop spending so much time with Raze if that was my logic.

I sprang up onto my feet and aimed, this time at Tamara. She barely flinched when the ray bolt tagged her shoulder, but it did turn her vindictive smile toward me. Until her cell phone rang.

She answered it, ignoring the fact that I hit her knee and her side. She fired off another bullet in my direction that splintered the bar in front of me. I yelped and dodged out of the way of the debris.

Sal's annoyed hiss was plenty loud in the following silence. “Would you
please
convince her to stop destroying my bar?”

“She got a phone call. That might convince her to—­” I heard the front door opening and closing and risked a peek over the top of the bar. Tamara and Linda were nowhere to be seen, though Toadicus remained in a crumpled green heap. I rose to my feet, half expecting this to be some kind of trap. But no, apart from us, the bar was empty. “Huh. She's gone.”

“Good,” Sal said.

I dropped back to my knees. “Raze, are you okay?”

“No,” my best enemy forever said, giving me a malevolent look. “I got shot.”

“It's not life-­threatening,” Sal said.

“Speak for yourself. It
hurts
.” Raze writhed in place and I felt my stomach twist.

“Gail.” Guy had his phone out. “I think I know why they left. Kiki just texted. The kidnapper's offering up Mobius right now.”

“Where?” I asked, stomach dropping.

Guy swallowed hard. “Wrigley Field.”

 

CHAPTER 13

“I
f there's somewhere you need to be that's not my bar, by all means help yourself,” Sal said.

I looked at Guy. I could feel myself torn in two: I needed to be at Wrigley Field and I wanted to run so far away that it wasn't even funny. But I couldn't deny that I was immune to the effects of the Demobilizer, and with Guy and Vicki off the roster and Sam still in the wind, they were down several of their heavy hitters. But Raze . . .

Sal rolled her eyes. “I can take care of her. Please go away. Feel free to never return.”

“You should go,” Guy said.

I looked down. Raze was still bleeding and obviously in pain. But I couldn't leave her, not when it was my fault that she'd been in this fight at all. I took a deep breath. “I'll come see you in the hospital and we can set up our fight time.”

Raze immediately stopped wriggling. “Really?”

“Promise.”

“I'm holding you to that. Go deal with that annoying do-­gooder shit. Take any gun you like. Though, really, you need to get your own weapons at some point. I expect you to bring your A-­game to our showdown.”

“Of course.” I held up the one she'd given me and nodded my thanks as I put the safety back on. I could practically hear Sal's relieved sigh as we left.

Outside, Guy tensed, holding his arms out like he was about to take flight. For the first time, I saw his expression flicker. “Right. I think you're on your own for this one. Stay safe, okay?”

“How the hell am I supposed to get to Wrigley in time?” Flight. Flight would be such a handy power to have right now.

Guy looked around. When his gaze stopped on a nearby rack of the bright purple rent-­a-­bikes on the corner, I began shaking my head preemptively. “No way.”

“If you phase—­”

“Phasing winds up with me in dumpsters and you saw what happened last time. I nearly became a Gail-­shaped pancake on the concrete.”

“You're going horizontally, not vertically. You'll be fine. And you really don't have much time.”

He had a point, as much as I hated to admit it. Guy moved like he was about to wrench the bike out of the rack with strength alone, but at the last second seemed to remember he was powerless. He pulled his wallet out and swiped his credit card through the reader. “Make sure you return it within six hours, or else they're going to double-­charge me,” he said with a small smile.

I gave him a sarcastic laugh. He came from one of the richest families in Chicago.

“Feels weird, you going and me not. I'll stay here and let the Davenport rep know what's happening,” Guy said.

“Thanks.” I had to stand up on tiptoes and grab his face to bring him down to my level, but there was no way I was going off to face a fight of this nature without a kiss. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to linger; after a few seconds, I pulled back and wrinkled my nose at him. “I'll do my best to survive this.”

“I like this plan. Good luck!”

He waved me off as I grabbed the bike and started to pedal. Why had Mobius's kidnapper selected Wrigley Field? Was he just as much of a showoff as your average garden-­variety supervillain? It just
figured
. Hell, half of them picked the Bean so they could see themselves in the mirror the entire time.

Focus, I told myself, pedaling harder. If I was going to get there in time, I had to utilize a skill I could only access subconsciously. This was why I stayed out of the superpower world. Nothing about my life was intentional, really. I'd been given superpowers against my will, been kidnapped against my will, stayed at my job despite misgivings. The fact that the Demobilizer didn't affect me was just another thing I couldn't control.

But maybe I
could
control one thing. So I took everything Angélica had tried to teach me and I pedaled as hard as I could. Trying to build up as much speed as possible, I attempted to phase.

I threw myself face-­first over the handlebars and landed in a heap on the concrete. Fifty feet in front of the bike. So. Partial success at least.

“Ow,” I said to the sky overhead. Perhaps an icy November day wasn't the best time to ride a bike and learn to use one's superpowers at the same time. At least I'd been partially successful. Scrambling to my feet, I jogged back to the bike, picked it up, and started to ride again. I pedaled as hard as before, concentrated, and did everything I could to bring the bike with me.

I jumped forward a block. Reflexes kept me from skidding across a patch of ice, though I clipped a newspaper vending machine with my elbow. I tried again, nearly giving myself a headache as I put all of my focus into my task. This time I jumped three blocks. Then five. A mile. By the time I neared the right neighborhood, I had it down, stretching every bit of speed and momentum I possibly could into the phasing.

Of course, I overshot Wrigley Field by half a mile.

I skidded to a slushy stop, looked around at the intersection, and grunted. Quickly, I checked my phone. There were four missed calls from Angélica.

“Where are you?” she asked immediately when I called her back.

“On my way to Wrigley Field.”

“How did you—­oh, you must be with Guy.”

“I was. Speaking of, you should know Tamara Diesel's probably at Wrigley Field.”

“How is that a ‘speaking of'—­I don't even want to know actually. Yeah, she's been spotted. When can you get here?”

“Which entrance are you at?”

“I'm over on Addison.”

“Got it. Give me a minute.” I hung up on her annoyed follow-­up question, which she would no doubt scold me for. I jumped over two blocks and pedaled the rest of the way. At least Angélica was easy to spot: she might not have been dressed up in superhero armor, but she had a bright red jacket that looked far too light for the Chicago weather. I skidded to a stop beside her.

She gaped at me. “Where did you even—­”

“I phased here,” I said, yanking my hair free of its messy ponytail and attempting to shove it all back into some semblance of control. “So instead of yelling at me, you should pat yourself on the back for being an awesome teacher.”

She relented with a shrug. “I do that every day. Here.”

She held up her phone, which showed a feed from inside Wrigley Field, the ivied walls prominent in the distance. A tarp covered the field for the off-­season, but at home plate I could see two figures. One, wearing a ski mask to hide his features, stood over the other one, who was slumped forward on his knees. A sign hung around his chest, but the image wasn't clear enough for me to make out the words. I could, however, see his face almost perfectly.

My stomach pitched.

“That's definitely Mobius,” I said, keeping my voice steady as I handed the phone back. “What's the sign say? ‘I'm a major tool'?”

“Your typical grandstanding. Some nonsense about how the entire stadium is rigged with Demobilizer, and if anybody attacks, the kidnapper's got a dead man's switch.”

“What about gas masks?” I asked.

Angélica's smile was made of sharp edges. “Nobody knows if they'll be effective. Given that there are about ten different supervillains outside of this stadium, nobody else seems to be willing to risk it.”

“So, what? Davenport's sending us in?” I said, folding my arms over my chest.

“Not us. You.”

I swiveled on my heels and raised my eyebrows. I'd heard it perfectly, I knew that, but: “Excuse me?”

“You saw Brook's reaction to Mobius—­she won't be rational about him. Mobius knows you have the Mobium, but he doesn't know about me. Davenport would prefer to keep me as the ace up its sleeve.”

I looked at her red sleeve and barely refrained from asking if she was supposed to be the ace of hearts or diamonds. That kind of wondering made me realize I was a little closer to panicking than I had thought.

“They're expecting me to just walk out to the middle of Wrigley Field and say, ‘Hey, you, give me the scientist'? This is a terrible plan. But then it seems to be a day for them, so why am I not surprised?”

Angélica handed me an earwig. She grabbed my arm, stilling my hand before I could pop the little earpiece in. “I know it's not great,” she said, stepping close and lowering her voice. “And I know you hate him and you have every right to, after what he did to you. But Mobius means a lot to Kiki and she's important to both of us, remember.”

Right. Kiki Davenport, niece of the worst man on the planet, granddaughter of the second worst. The walking example of
you can'
t choose your family
.

“I got it,” I said. “I was always going to do it. I'm whining because—­”

“You're scared. I get it. But I'm here to back you up if you need it. I'll be right in your ear the whole time.” Angélica let go of my arm so I could slip the earpiece in. “Where'd you disappear to last night? There was a rumor Eddie had thrown you in a cell.”

“He tried. Jessie sprang me, and I slept in her base.”

Angélica raised her eyebrows.

“Yeah, I don't know why she's taken such a liking to me lately, either,” I said. “But let's go fix this problem so we can get the world back to normal and I can go back to work and pretend I'm a regular human again.”

“By all means.” Angélica jerked her head and I followed her into Wrigley Field.

This was going to go so well. I could already tell.

S
ome of the same Detmer guards from the assault at Union Station had set up shop in the tunnels underneath Wrigley Field, which I imagined very few ­people but stadium workers ever saw. A dank smell about the place made my nose itch, but that wasn't the worst part of gathering in the little underground room.

No, that would be the handcuffed figure in the corner.

“You brought her? Are you sure that's wise?” I asked, blinking several times at Brook, who of course glared at me. Whatever connection we'd forged yesterday was now completely gone.

“She's immune,” the team leader said.

I looked at Angélica and it struck me that Davenport—­who was regularly responsible for preventing the end of the world—­was pinning its hopes on a prisoner and two ­people that had turned their backs on the organization. At least we were well-­supplied: each of the guards was kitted up with a fancy communication system and state-­of-­the-­art armor. They offered me a set, but I lifted my shirt to show off the armor I already had.

“The payment,” the team leader said, handing me a shiny briefcase. “You will secure the samples of the Demobilizer and the scientist—­”

“Yeah, yeah. Give him the money, get the stuff. Deal with it when shit inevitably explodes.”

The team leader gave me a look that said he was very used to dealing with superheroes and that he did not particularly enjoy his job. I hoped he had a good 401k.

“It's not rocket science,” I said as Angélica looked away innocently. “Can I see a map?”

“Why do you need to see a map?”

I stared at him. “In case I need to run away.”

He scowled and pulled up a set of blueprints on his tablet, passing that over to me. “At least try to secure the money if you do choose to run.”

“No promises.”

“You won't need the map,” another guard said. “You'll have us to guide you.”

I'd already memorized it. “Yeah,” I said. “Because that never goes wrong. Anything else I need to know?”

There was, of course: they ran like a military operation, which meant a full briefing. While Mobius and his captor stood over our heads somewhere on the field and supervillains circled around. Clearly they didn't understand the meaning of
urgent
. I listened as Angélica stood behind my left shoulder, giving them a look that was as unimpressed as I felt. When they finally released me to walk through the tunnels, she stayed with me, keeping her head down.

“Doesn't the kidnapper have cameras watching?” I asked, very belatedly.

“It's likely. He'll just think I'm a civilian.”

“Yeah, until you punch through some concrete or something,” I said, snorting.

“I'll try to avoid that. Dead giveaway and all.” Angélica put a hand on my arm, stopping me. She put her hand over my wrist, which had the little microphone for the guys in the bunker room to listen in. “If it comes down to a choice, take Mobius.”

“And let the villains get the Demobilizer?”

“Davenport feels like it's more important, but . . . Mobius is smart. He could theoretically make an antidote. If it's possible.”

“And it's what Kiki would want?” I asked, raising my eyebrow at her.

She shrugged, which in itself was an answer.

“Okay,” I said. “Keep an eye on me out there.”

“Definitely.” She hit my shoulder, lightly, and I stopped at the end of the tunnel where the players emerged. This time I really was going to meet my maker.

God, I hated him so much.

T
he kidnapper spun toward me as I stepped out onto Wrigley Field, home of my ex's favorite team. If he were awake, Jeremy would be so annoyed to be missing out on an opportunity like this. The tarp crinkled under my feet as I stood there, far too exposed. The stands were empty, giving the place a ghost-­town atmosphere. In the distance, hovering in the gray sky, I could see the blacks and very-­dark-­grays of the flying villains, all of whom appeared to be keeping a healthy distance. I couldn't say I blamed them. I kept my left hand high in the air, showing that I was theoretically not a threat, and held the shiny briefcase in my right hand. The kidnapper's eyes went almost comically wide as he took me in.

I could smell the sharp tang of fear-­sweat on him.

“Davenport sent me,” I said, feeling stupid. The least they could have done was give me a better script. “I'm just here to pay for the asshole and the stupid antipower juice and leave. I don't want any trouble.”