School for Sidekicks (6 page)

A voice called out, “It's plush collectibles, all right? How many times do I have to tell you that!”

“Whatever,” said the lips. “The main point is no fingers. Much easier to use something sharp and have them cut throats if they have to.”

“Would you two shut up!” snapped Spartanicus. “And, please tell me we're not broadcasting yet.”

“Sorry,” said the lips. “You said ‘go.' We're live.”

In the monitors I could see Spartanicus shake his head sadly, then look into the camera. “Right, so toss the speech. Captain Commanding, I know you're watching this. That fancy scanner Foxman built you wouldn't miss the switchover in feeds. So, I'm going to cut to the chase. You. Here. Now. Take longer than fifteen minutes and we start killing peop—”

A crash and a rain of glass cut him off. Captain Commanding had arrived, courtesy of one of the skylights that supplied the bulk of the museum's daytime illumination. The Captain swooped down to hover in the air a few feet above and in front of me, facing Spartanicus. I felt a huge rush of relief. With Captain Commanding on the scene everything would come out fine.

“You've got my attention, evildoer! But you're not going to like the results!” The Captain always talked like that, all declarations and exclamation points.

A glance at the monitor told me Spartanicus wasn't impressed. He visibly rolled his eyes. Well, he was about to get his, so no worries there.

“Release the hostages unharmed and I might let you—guh!” The Captain curled into a gasping ball without falling out of the air. “Memories of Failure. Battering my Mind. Must. Fight. But So Strong. Too strong for Mempulse. What's happening!”

Spartanicus laughed. “That would be the combination of Mr. Implausible boosting Mempulse's powers and the oh-so-conveniently-placed Commanding Car serving as the perfect mnemonic amplifier for the scene I want you to relive in your last few moments on Earth. The day I beat you into a pulp.”

The Captain balled up even tighter. “So humiliating. Saved by F-F-F-Foxman! Losing control. No!”

The Captain was losing? No, that couldn't be right. He'd come around in a moment or two. He had to.

Spartanicus snapped his fingers. “Bagger!”

A large brown lunch sack appeared around the Captain, its top neatly folded over. “Here's one bag he won't be able to punch his way out of.”

“Scissors? And now a paper bag?” I was still sure everything was going to be all right. Maybe because of the ridiculousness of it all. “You've got to be kidding me.” I didn't realize I'd spoken aloud until the lips appeared again.

“The bag's a very special design and a lot tougher than it looks,” said the lips. “I've seen to the latter by boosting Bagger's powers, too. Besides, it doesn't have to hold Captain Overconfident for long, just until—”

A tremendous
fwoosh
ing came from behind me, cutting off Mr. Implausible, as a blast of blue flame suddenly engulfed the bag.

“That,” finished the lips.

“Eat Heartfire, Captain Charcoal Briquette!” yelled the fiery villainess.

On the monitor I saw Spartanicus rolling his eyes and mouthing “Captain Charcoal Briquette? Really? Really?” I couldn't blame him. You didn't expect real Hoods to sound so much like their comic-book counterparts.

The bag was burning merrily now as HeartBurn kept pouring on the flames—though it didn't look like the fire was actually consuming the paper. That's when I really began to worry, but it seemed so unreal. This was Captain Commanding, after all. He couldn't lose. Not really.

The lips spoke again. “Surviving that should be soaking up most of the big boy's powers of invulnerability. Let's see how he likes what Spartanicus has to add to the party.”

The big Hood stepped forward to the edge of the hole blasted in the wall and lifted his arms wide, palms out. I could see a thick scar on each hand, matching the one on his forehead. All three tore open, and for a brief moment I saw what looked like shining emeralds buried under his skin. They pulsed briefly and a triple blast of sizzling green energy burst forth, spiking the burning bag.

Without so much as a whimper, the bag holding Captain Commanding dropped out of the air, falling to the concrete below. It hit with a dull thud and lay still.

No! It wasn't possible.

“And, end scene.” Spartanicus threw his head back and roared with laughter. “Let's strike the set. Bagger, loose the hostages. Fluffinator, see them out. Mempulse, you and HeartBurn keep an eye on the lunch bag with me. That won't have killed the big jerk. Not quite. If it so much as twitches, nuke it.”

The monitors all went black as Spartanicus stepped to the edge of the hole and jumped down to the lower level. He landed square on the bag holding Captain Commanding, but it didn't move.
It didn't move …
Spartanicus laughed again, then stepped to the floor, kicking the bag before moving a few feet away. HeartBurn followed a moment later, riding a pillar of fire down like a reverse rocket ship.

“What about your boy Quick here?” asked the lips. “Cut him loose with the rest?”

“No, I want to hang on to him for a bit longer. Bring him down.”

Bring him down.
The fact that the Captain—my Captain—had lost the fight was starting to sink in. I felt a sort of sick helpless anger begin to burn in my chest.

“Can do.” The lips had suddenly grown a head—thin and pinched, with pale cheeks and greasy brown hair.

It rotated in the air and slid past me toward the gap in the wall. The movement reminded me of a slow-motion video I'd seen of a frog's tongue being drawn back into its mouth with a fly on the end. I turned my neck as far as I could, following the head's progress. Next came a hand holding the camera. A moment later, another hand came down from the Commanding Car above. Both moved with that same elastic contraction. It made me queasy to watch—or maybe that was the rage that continued to build in my chest and stomach.

It was only as normal-length arms and a neck appeared when Mr. Implausible's body reassembled itself, that I noticed the rest of him already sitting in one of the front-row theater seats. I had a second to wonder whether most of him had been there all along, then he stood and walked toward me. Unlike the others, he was wearing street clothes instead of a fancy costume—a plain gray suit of the sort you might see on any corner in Heropolis.

Mr. Implausible leaned down and grabbed the back of my neck, casually lifting me and my bag free of the rebar hook. “Come on, boy, Spartanicus isn't done with you yet.”

He extended one leg into the space beyond the hole in the wall, where his foot suddenly detached itself and slowly drifted down to the floor. He brought the other leg forward and that foot followed the first. When they were both firmly planted on the concrete below, we slid sinuously down after them. But I was barely aware of our motion.

From the second Mr. Implausible's hand touched the back of my neck I had been overwhelmed by the most intense sensation of cold—like someone was slowly coating my body with a layer of ice. It had started at the point of contact between the two of us, moving up to engulf my head before traveling down from there. It should have hurt. Instead, I felt increasingly strong, like one of those superconducting magnets that can only work at insanely cold temperatures. It was soothing somehow, too, though the cold didn't touch the hot fury that was filling the center of my chest.

“Where do you want the boy?” As Mr. Implausible dragged me around toward Spartanicus, his words sounded distant and spongy, like they were coming through deep water.

In response, I saw Spartanicus's lips moving, but couldn't make out what he was saying. It sounded like
mwah-mwah-mm-mwah-mwah
, only slower.

He also pointed at the giant paper bag. But I didn't think he was talking about me, because an instant later the bag vanished, leaving Captain Commanding exposed on the floor. The Captain was curled in a naked ball on his side. His costume had burned away, exposing angry red skin. Cracked bits here and there oozed blood.

HeartBurn kicked him in the shoulder, flipping him onto his back, where he uncurled. Bits of half-melted costume stuck to his stomach and thighs, providing a little bit of tattered modesty. His chest was rising and falling faintly, showing that he still lived. But that was the only way you could tell.

“Iiiiime … toooo … finnnnnish … thisssssss.” I could understand Spartanicus again, though his voice sounded as though it had been slowed way down. “Parrrrrk the boyyyy, Mr. Implaaaaausible, Iiiii neeed aaaa booooooost.”

“Noooo neeed, Iiiii cannnn doooooo booooth.” He extended an arm toward Spartanicus and his hand left his wrist, moving to touch the side of the larger Hood's neck.

Spartanicus raised both hands toward the Captain, though he was now moving with a weird slowness that matched his words. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Mr. Implausible close his eyes. Suddenly the icy cold that gripped me became a thousand times more intense. I felt like some kind of wintery god.

Without thinking, I lifted my arms away from my sides, ripping the thick fabric that held me like so much tissue paper. The shredded remains of the bag started to fall away, moving as though they were dropping through Jell-O instead of air.
Everything
had slowed down to match the voices.

Everything but me. I spun around, breaking Mr. Implausible's grip on my neck, and punched him with everything I had. He lifted off the ground and sailed away from me, seeming to pick up speed as he went. I turned again, and saw HeartBurn, a look of shock growing on her face, as she raised her fingers to point at me. Fire crawled forward out of the tips, but I easily ducked beneath the blast, grabbing up a thick piece of broken concrete as I did so. I flipped it at HeartBurn and it caught her square in the stomach, doubling her over and dropping her to the floor.

Things began moving more and more like they normally did. By the time I snatched up a piece of rebar and started toward Spartanicus, he was operating at two-thirds normal speed. Still, I was faster, and he didn't get his arms up in time to prevent my attack. I smacked him right between the eyes, and the iron bar bent into a half loop, wrapping itself over the top of his head. He stumbled backward, but he might have recovered if Captain Commanding's hand hadn't shot out and caught him by the ankle then, jerking him off his feet.

But even as he fell, his eyes caught mine, and for the second time in as many hours his forehead ripped open, unleashing a searing green beam that hit me full in the face. This time it was brighter and much more intense.

Boom!

I held on to consciousness for a few brief instants longer than I had the last time. I didn't much enjoy it, as it gave me the chance to fully experience what felt like a five-hundred-pound ball of molten lead smashing me backward off my feet. But it was only a brief agony, as the pain took me elsewhere before I could hit the ground.

 

6

Rise and Shine

…

…

… I felt like … butter melting into Mom's pancakes … or maybe lazy Sunday morning.

That moment when you know you're awake, but also know you don't have to get up, and realize that you can go back to sleep if you want? Yeah. That. Still, I had the nagging feeling there was something I really ought to care about.

I made an effort and opened my eyes, or thought I did anyway. All I could see was a hazy golden glow. Part of me wanted to be upset about that, but I felt too tired and mellow to care—like I had the world's heaviest and most comfortable blanket weighing me down.

“Is he going to be all right, Agent Brendan?” It was Captain Commanding's voice, clear and bold, but distant somehow, like I was hearing a video playing on a laptop in the other room.

Good, he must have won. I can go back to sleep.

“I hope so,” a woman answered. “It's hard to tell. I've never seen anything quite like this.” A hollow, thunking noise followed, but very close—like someone tapping on my skull.

“He's one of us, then?” The Captain again. “Metahuman?”

“No doubt of that,” she continued. “Our boy Evan is well on his way to wearing a mask.”

Me? They were talking about me?
Captain Commanding
was asking how I was doing? I was going to be a Mask? I should have been jumping up and down and cheering, but I still couldn't seem to move. Even staying awake took enormous effort.

“This has to have been very traumatic for him,” the Captain said quietly, and there was a strange note in his voice that I'd never heard in any of his vids or interviews. “Do you think he
ought
to remember it all?”

“I'm not sure what you're asking,” responded Agent Brendan.

“Well, I just got off the phone with his mother, and she said he's a
huge
Captain Commanding fan. I wonder if he won't be too traumatized by seeing his hero laid low like that…”

Agent Brendan snorted—it was an incredulous sound, not what I would have expected from anyone dealing with the Captain. “You mean the part where you were bleeding all over what was left of your uniform? Don't worry about it, I doubt he even noticed. He was kind of busy taking out Mr. Implausible and HeartBurn at the time.”

“Don't mess around with me,” said the Captain, his voice cold and dangerous. “You won't like the results.”

“I didn't mean to…” Brendan's voice was weary but apologetic. “Look, Commanding, I'm sorry. It's been a long day and I hate the idea of tampering with the memories of all those witnesses. For a second there it sounded like you were suggesting that we alter the boy's as well, and I spoke without thinking. I'm sure that wasn't what you were asking, was it? That we alter a meta's memories?”