Shadow Boy (7 page)

“Carla’s tougher than you are.”

“In some ways, yeah,” I say, honestly. “Physically she’s tougher than I am, but mentally she’s more vulnerable. Well… maybe,” I admit, thinking of the fight with the shadow dinos. “She insists that the shadow dinos are just hungry and she’s going to make me take her with me to feed them.”

“Shadow dinos?” he repeats.

“The monsters in the Shadowlands.”

He looks away, his shoulders shaking.

“You can laugh,” I tell him. “I can see the humor in the situation.” He starts laughing loudly. “Personally I think it’s smarter just to toss a few buckets through shadow portals and hope the things don’t figure out how to get out,” I go on.

“So you WILL feed them?” he asks, still amused.

“I promised,” I say. “And maybe if they’re not so hungry I’ll have less trouble,” I add, hopefully. “But I’ve got no clue WHAT to feed them, or how I’ll afford it,” I admit.

“Try the leftovers, maybe it’ll become a good way to get rid of trash,” he says.

“Good idea.” I look around. “Are we really going to walk all the way to the Hall at this pace?” I finally ask.

“Nah, we’ll take the shadows sooner or later. I want to see these shadow dinos of yours. But I have one more question for you,” he says. “Why were you willing to give Shadowman a chance?”

I go silent, staring forward as I shove my hands into my pockets. Why DID I give him a chance? “He seems to actually believe that Herold is out to take out super-kind. That it’s not just a game of heroes versus villains, you know? And Max said he was really old, right? So if he’s that old, and he’s stayed out of the Cape Cells this long, he’s got to have a good feel for how things are going--street sense. I don’t feel any sort of attachment to him, or anything—you know, other than the whole ‘Finally met my dad’ sort of stuff,” I admit, irritated at feeling even that much. “But that doesn’t mean I should underestimate him.”

“You’re right,” Nico says. “He’s definitely not someone that should be underestimated.”

“He wanted me to finish Mother off,” I say slowly. “He seems to think I could.”

“You probably could, in the right circumstances,” Nico says, "especially when you’re older. In an alternate timeline, your father killed my mom.”

“Oh. Wow,” I say. “So he wasn’t joking about finishing Mother off, huh?”

“He seems like a weasel, doesn’t he?” Nico asks with amusement. “He’s the first to abandon ship if things go south. He’s willing to work for some seriously nasty people, if they pay right. All of it makes you think he’s a relatively weak cape, right?”

“He’s not?”

“Not at all. He’s just…” he goes silent, thinking about it for a moment, "Single minded, I'd say,” he decides. "He doesn’t let his ego get in the way of his profit. In a way, I can almost admire his ‘street sense’ as you call it. Dislike it, sure, but there’s something admirable about being so slick in this game.”

“It doesn’t fit,” I say finally. “Every hero or villain you see in the news has a massive ego—”

“Not all supers show up in the news,” Nico says with a shrug. “Your dad is a prime example. Sure, WE know about him, but the world doesn’t—even after they went searching for him thanks to Mother, they didn’t remember it afterward. They didn’t remember him, either. The ones that are the most dangerous aren’t the ones you see on television, Rocco. They’re the ones working behind the scenes.”

“Yeah, I guess,” I say, giving up. “Has anyone beaten you in the video game yet?”

“No, but Ace and Max working together have gotten the farthest,” Nico says. “I’m just waiting for Zoe to try her hand at it.”

“That’ll be interesting,” I say.

“Yeah, it will.”

***

*Arctic Circle*

“And we will wait for the food to finish cooking!” Tatiana says cheerfully, closing the stove door and looking at Marie with a smile. “You have very much the talent for this.”

“I didn’t when I first showed up,” Marie says, sitting at the table. “I burnt everything. I cheated for years, just changing the food so it was cooked.”

“What changed?” Tatiana asks as she sits down across from her.

“Cinema,” Marie says with a laugh. “Seeing those perfectly dressed women pulling the food out of the oven, it looked so… glamorous. I decided that I’d try again. I even went to a class. I wanted to be the perfect wife and mother.”

“I am not understanding why your son hates you so,” Tatiana says finally, the words she’s been keeping down bursting to the surface. She’s never been good at keeping her nose out of things.

“I…” Marie says slowly, leaning back in her chair. “I didn’t know what to do as Wade started getting older. I manipulated his genetics, making him live longer, but he stopped me after a while. You see… he was already in his fifties when we met. He told me…” she takes a deep, shuddering breath, “when he reached the hundreds, he told me that he was looking forward to… to meeting Jesus. I told him that Jesus could wait—that I needed him here, more, but I think he just got… tired. And I let him die,” she whispers, looking at her hands. “I let him go, like he wanted. But when he was gone, it felt like a massive part of me was gone, as well. I lost my little world, the world I clung to, hiding in while I was supposed to be saving my planet. I… I threw a fit.”

“It is not easy, losing a loved one,” Tatiana says, reaching across the table and taking Marie’s hand. “My own Clifford, he had a very hard time when he lost me. I have been told he became quite a pain to deal with.”

Marie stares at her for a moment, and when that doesn’t work, she points out, “He’s still a pain, you know.”

“Oh yes!” Tatiana says, laughing. “He is very much a pain to deal with. But the new theater wing is wonderful, do you not think?”

“We were dragging in chairs for an entire day, Tatia,” Marie says. “All for a silly sports game. There are only three of us, do we really need fifty automatic loungers?”

“We are planning for the next World Series,” Tatiana says with a nod. “We are hoping that our home team wins yet again!”

“Russia?”

“Oh, no, Missouri!”

Marie stares at her for a moment before standing. “That’s nice,” she says. “Do you mind if I go freshen up for a moment?”

“No, of course not,” Tatiana says, waving her off.

Marie heads down the hall, going right past the bathroom and to Nico’s massive room of technology. She looks around for a moment, a hint of confusion on her face that disappears when she sees the wall of monitors. She walks over, tapping on the controls. She knows the number by heart—

“Do you really think we’re stupid?” She jerks and turns, looking at Superior. He’s standing in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest. “Step away from the computer, Marie.”

“You don’t understand,” she starts out.

“You want to call someone, probably your son,” he says, straightening casually. “But your son thinks you’re dead, and we’re going to keep it that way.”

“I just need to see him, to hear his voice—he’s all I have left of Wade,” she says pleadingly.

“While I suppose I can understand that, you still can’t call him,” Superior says. “Why don’t you go back into the kitchen now and we’ll chalk this up to a lapse in judgment? We’ll let you watch the presidential debates later.”

“You can’t DO this to me!” Marie protests. “You’ve cut me from my only family, you’ve trapped me up in this frozen hell, you’ve—”

“If it were up to me, you’d be buried several thousand feet under the ground, chained with two million pounds attached to each limb, while STILL wearing the collar. And according to my newest daughter, it gets VERY hot down there. You’ll get to see hell face to face,” Superior says coldly. “But maybe that would be better. You wouldn’t be complaining about the cold, that’s for sure.”

“You cannot blame a mother for wanting to see that their child is happy and safe,” Tatiana says from behind him. “Marie, it is time to fix the sides.”

Marie stares into Superior’s ice cold eyes, her hands clenching for a moment before looking down. “I’m coming, Tatia,” she says, stepping forward.

Superior moves aside, letting her go past him as he meets Tatiana’s eyes. She stares him straight in the eye, and then moves forward, kissing him on the lips. “Do not be so hard on her, my love,” she says, smiling slightly. “She is slowly coming in circle.”

“I know,” he says, not bothering to correct her broken metaphor. “But we can’t trust her.”

“This I know, as well.”

***

*Kansas City*

I came home near midnight, collapsed in my bed, and slept like the dead until now. “ROCCO!” someone yells outside my door, knocking hard. “Wake up, man! It’s time for class!”

“Shuddup, I had a rough day yesterday,” I complain, dragging my pillow over my head. The door opens and Max saunters in, a breakfast sandwich in his hand. I can smell it. We practically lived off the things during our mission. I feel like gagging at the smell. “Get that thing away from me, man,” I mutter, daring to glare at him from under the pillow.

“Wow, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed,” Max taunts, taking a bite just to spite me, I’m sure. “And here I heard you dragged Carla off on a romantic date.”

“That was NOT a romantic date—and Skye came along,” I say, giving up on sleeping. I shove the pillow off my head and sit up. “First we run into Shadowman in the Shadowlands, then we get attacked by dinosaur things, and THEN I landed us in the middle of a freaking Anti-Super party, which filled an entire football field with haters.”

“Sounds like a fun day!”

I stare at him for a long moment. “Tell me you’re joking,” I say finally.

“I’m always up for a stadium full of people,” he says, finishing off his sandwich. “I’m surprised you weren’t. But come on, already, Nico says you get special training this morning.”

“What?”

“You’re going into the photo op game, right? We have to decide on your debut.”

“That’s not what he said I was going to do!” I yelp. “I thought I’d just be sent out to find people!”

“You’re going to be one of us, right? That includes being out there in the public eye,” Max says. “I offered to do the debut for you, but it doesn’t work when you’re both villains.”

“So who’s going to do it?” I ask, feeling worried. Trent’s the main guy for the hero side—I’d rather not get dragged into a brawl with him, okay? He’s a tank.

“Well, Vinny’s coming home,” Max says. “Since he’s fire and you’re shadow, it seems like the best choice to me. Although you could ask Emily, she’d probably be willing, and she’s coming up with Vinny.”

“Vinny?” I repeat, my eyes widening as I realize how obvious that one is. “That’d make for a good one, wouldn’t it? He could try and get rid of the shadows—but I’m not sure I’m fireproof.”

“I’m sure we’ll find out pretty quickly.”

“Thanks,” I drawl, giving him a dirty look. “I don’t know what good it’ll do, though, me being in the public notice. The biggest part of my abilities is that people won’t see me coming, right?”

“We want them to,” Max says.

“What?”

“We want people to see you coming. We want people jumping at shadows and wondering if the super villain—er… you need a name.”

“NOT Shadowboy,” I say quickly, "anything other than Shadowboy.”

“Or Procurer,” Max says agreeably.

“Procurer?” I repeat.

“It’s what the Collector called him. You don’t even want to know what it means over in England,” Max says, waving it off. “Now either you get dressed or I haul you out there in your My Little Pony boxers.”

“I am NOT wearing—” I look down, too late. He starts to laugh.

“Gotcha,” he says, heading for my closet. He digs through it, pulling out clothes and tossing them at me. “Weren’t you getting clothes made?” he asks.

“Yeah, but it’s not a rush order—I should get the first set tonight or tomorrow,” I say, getting dressed. “And I don’t even own a pair of My Little Pony boxers, you know.”

“I’m not going to say a word on that one,” Max says. “Seeing as you just went on a date with Carla—”

“It wasn’t a date! I’m absolutely positive that if there’s a chance of getting mauled involved, it’s not a date,” I say. My mind goes back to yesterday, lingering on the run-in with my father. “Or the guy that kidnapped her,” I add a bit blandly, tying my shoes. “I mean, even if she wasn’t only fourteen, can you imagine how awkward that would be? ‘Dad, this is my date—I think you already know her, seeing as you KIDNAPPED her,’” I drawl.

“You’re still hung up on the age thing,” Max points out.

“Oh forget it, we’ve got classes to get to, and I’m starving,” I say, walking out of my dorm room and into the dining area. I head for the kitchen, where a handful of black suits are working on making breakfast. With Vinny, you usually don’t get to request what you eat—you just eat what’s in front of you. With these guys, though, you can go, “Can I get some pancakes, a side of bacon, and coffee?”

One hands me a card with a number and I head for a table, waiting for my order to be up. I blink as Carla drops down next to me. “So?” she asks.