Super Villain Academy 2: Polar Opposites (8 page)

“I told you, I don’t know who or what you’re talking about,” Savannah said.

“Vannah,” a voice Jeff almost recognized drawled from what was probably the living room. Savannah flinched as if she’d been jolted by a shock of lightning. “Let him in.”

Savannah closed her eyes and muttered as if issuing a silent prayer. Then she spun on her heel and led Jeff to the living room. He followed cautiously. When he turned into the living room entry, he found himself toe to toe with the last person he expected to see.

“Seems we finally have something in common,” purred the unexpected villain.

“Set?” Jeff blinked. “You stole Oci?”

“No, you idiot. You lost her.” Set’s deep voice rumbled like thunder. He scanned Jeff from head to toe. His upper lip raised in disgust. “Not that I wouldn’t have stolen her fair and square, given enough time.”

Jeff rubbed his face while Set crossed the room and settled into an armchair with all the arrogance his over-inflated ego could support. “What? You didn’t take her?”

“No. Why do you think I did?” Even sitting, Set managed to look down his nose at Jeff.

Jeff studied Set. It had only been a few months since he had last seen him. Set attended Super Villain Academy and had once organized his little posse of followers to beat Jeff up pretty thoroughly. Set had stellar villain skills; he was able to create and control weather inside or out, was getting ready to graduate and go out into the world, and was Oceanus’ ex-boyfriend.

“Are you in-line with Mystic now?” Jeff asked.

With a dramatic sigh, Set crossed one leg over the other. He made a big production of being in control, even though thunder rumbled and a mysterious wind tossed Jeff’s long hair around. “Would you please explain what you are talking about before I’m forced to zap you with a lightning bolt?”

“You can’t throw your villain skills around for no good reason. We’re all supposed to be balanced now,” Jeff said.

“Who says I don’t have a good reason? You’re trespassing,” Set’s bored expression didn’t change.

“No I’m not!” Jeff squinted at Set. With an unexpected feeling of kinship for Set, he asked, “Didn’t the balancing work on you?”

“Of course it did. I’d have Savannah get help after I torched you,” Set said with his lip curled with antipathy again. “It was a balancing, Polar. I got an equal amount of good for my bad. I had a lot of bad! I’m just not very good at the good.”

“Okay, I don’t get it. Why are you here with Savannah? Obviously you’re using her to get to me, but why?” Jeff growled. All feelings of kinship evaporated, and he fought the urge to wipe Set’s look of revulsion off his face with a fist. He squinted at Savannah, who crouched in the corner of the room like a servant awaiting instruction. She stared at Set with a simpering, swooning expression on her face that made Jeff’s stomach lurch.

“That isn’t important.” Set waved his hand dismissively. “What is important is finding Oceanus.”

Jeff narrowed his eyes and glared at Set. “Why would you want to find her?”

Set rolled his eyes and shook his head. “We just went over this. Are you always so slow? I got an equal amount of good. Now it seems, I…” Set’s lips twisted and contorted as he tried to continue, “…care.”

The realization hit Jeff so hard he rocked backward. He and Set had a common goal, which meant he and Set were suddenly in league. What was that phrase? Frenemies? No. “No! No chance in hell am I gonna work with you!”

Jeff spun toward the front door, and a gust of wind blasted through the house, slamming all of the doors closed at once. Jeff jumped at the noise and immediately cursed himself for showing any weakness in front of Set.

“Before you stomp out of here, tell me something,” Set said.

Jeff stood with his back to Set, clenching his fists, refusing to turn and face him.

“What’s your plan? I’m sure with all of your contacts in the super world, you know where they’re holding her. How are you going to extract her? I hear you have a habit of collecting ‘friends,’ which I’m sure will come in handy when it comes time to form an extraction team.”

Jeff was glad he wasn’t facing Set, otherwise his flushed cheeks would give him away. How did Set know Jeff had no plan, or knowledge, or contacts? Yet they both knew that Set, having grown up knowing he was a villain, had access to all sorts of knowledge, contacts and intelligence. Didn’t matter.

“Oh, go play in a hurricane!” Jeff said, and stomped out the front door.

Chapter 13

“What’s the point of being super royalty if I can’t get action!” Jeff mumbled to himself. A fraction late, he registered that the traffic light was red and slammed on the brakes, screeching to a halt halfway through the cross walk. If the pedestrian hadn’t leapt backward, she would have ended up underneath the car. Jeff and the pedestrian gaped at each other for a long, heart-pounding moment before she finally made an extra wide berth and walked in front of his car to the opposite curb.

Jeff’s heart rate slowed to a more normal pace and dropped out of his throat. He rubbed his face and raked a shaky hand through his hair. The car behind him honked, and Jeff saw a green light looming overhead. “Crap. Get a hold of yourself, Tohler.”

He accelerated through the intersection. “Focus.” The remainder of his drive was uneventful, but he was relieved nonetheless when he pulled into visitor parking at Mother’s work.

Since he hadn’t known she was a white hat until a few months ago, he’d never been to her work before. The building was just one of many in a business park. Jeff was surprised at how utterly nondescript the place was, but supposed they had to hide in plain sight so that no one figured out what they were and what they did.

He pulled open the glass door stenciled with
HUMAN EQUALITY RETAINMENT ORGANIZATION.
This was the nonprofit cover for the HERO network. His grandmother had founded the nonprofit to assure that heroes were able to afford to devote their lives to fighting injustice in the world. Mother was one such hero, but apparently she didn’t need the financial backing of HERO because his dad had made so much money in his villain days that they were an extremely wealthy family, not that they lived like it.

An elderly gentleman sat behind a desk. He had a newspaper folded on the desk in front of him and seemed to be working the daily crossword. Jeff stopped in front of the desk and stared down at the man engrossed in his puzzle. Jeff cleared his throat, but the man didn’t look up.

“Excuse me,” Jeff said. The man still didn’t look. Jeff leaned over trying to catch the man’s eye and said louder, “Excuse me.”

The man finally glanced up and then grinned at Jeff. “Oop! Didn’t know you were there.” The man fumbled a device into his ear. “My hearing aid has been whining all morning, so I took it out. Sorry ‘bout that, son.”

Jeff couldn’t help but grin back at the jovial old man. “No problem.”

“What can I help you with today?” the man asked.

“I’m here to see my mom,” Jeff said.

“You are, are you?” The man looked slightly confused. “We don’t have many people in the office, and I thought I knew all their families. I’ve been volunteering here for twelve years, ever since my Edna died. Yep, after I lost my Edna, the house was too quiet. Those two days I was home were the longest days in my life. On the third day, I walked into the HERO office—that’s back when they were above the bakery over on 20
th
—and I’ve been coming twice a week ever since.”

Jeff smiled politely at the man, but didn’t know how to respond to the random info dump.

“Oop! Sorry. Got off task, didn’t I?” The man chuckled, and Jeff was worried his frail body would shake right out of the chair. “Who is your mother, then, son?”

“Sarah Tohler.”

The genial expression on the man’s face clouded with suspicion and anger. “Son, we wouldn’t have anyone by that name here. You must be in the wrong place.”

Jeff frowned, wondering about the man’s Jekyll and Hyde act. “Oh! I meant to say Sarah Mean. Sorry.” Jeff rolled his eyes and flashed an apologetic smile.

The man looked confused again, but then his eyebrows shot up toward his receded hairline and his mouth formed an “O” of surprise. “You’re the… oh my!”

The old man picked up the phone and punched in a three-digit number with his craggy old pointer finger. His hearing aid whined and he winced, holding the phone away from his ear. When it stopped, he put the receiver next to his ear again and said, “Ya still there?” He looked up at Jeff as he spoke into the phone. “The Balancer is here, and he wants to see his mother!” He nodded. “Yep, that’s what he says.”

The man nodded again in response to whatever the person on the phone said. Jeff was struck by the shrewd expression in eyes so washed out by age.

“Right,” the man spoke into the phone before hanging up. As soon as the receiver settled into its cradle a cacophony of sound erupted, making Jeff duck and look around. All at once, a metal gate rolled across the front door, barring entry or exit. A wall of thick iron bars rolled down, blocking access to the hallway that led deeper into the office building. The old man moved with such speed that Jeff barely registered the movement before his arms were yanked behind his back and bound together with what felt like really strong tape.

“What the…?” Jeff said. He struggled to break the man’s grip, but was surprised to find it too strong.

“Relax, son. Don’t struggle, and we won’t have to hurt you.”

“What the hell did I do?” Jeff barked, still trying to pull himself from the man’s hold.

“Watch your language, son.” The old man’s voice quavered with age.

Jeff’s cheeks burned pink, because a one hundred year old hero held him captive. He stopped struggling when a woman approached up the hallway. She looked professional in a black pants suit and white blouse with thin black pinstripes. Her hair was pulled back tight behind her head, and she wore glasses with rectangular lenses and thick black frames. Instead of stopping at the gate, the woman melded right through the bars and reformed into the ultra-professional on the other side. Jeff’s mouth gaped.

Even though she wore high heels, the top of her head only crested at Jeff’s breastbone. She stood in front of him with a curled lip and flared nostrils as if he smelled like stinky cheese. “Who is it you say you are?” she asked.

“Um.” Suddenly, Jeff wasn’t sure who to claim to be. Jeff Mean? Polar Tohler? “Sarah’s son, Jeff. I thought she worked here. Do I have the wrong place?”

The woman pushed her glasses up her nose and stepped closer to Jeff, peering closely at his face. When she blinked, he thought he heard the faintest shutter click of a camera.

Jeff had to fight the desire to lean away from her. “I have my driver’s license in my back pocket, if that’ll help.”

“Government identification,” the old man scoffed. “Right.”

The woman cocked her head to the side as if someone whispered in her ear. She raised her eyebrows and looked at Jeff. “He’s clear.”

The old man dug into the front pocket of his pants. “Well, I’ll be.” He pulled out what looked like a pocketknife, but the blade he unfolded from it glowed lime green.

“Dude, what’s that for?” Jeff couldn’t see far enough over his shoulder to see what the old man planned to do, but then he felt a relief in pressure of the tape around his wrists.

The old man snapped the strange blade closed and shoved it back into his pocket before tearing the tape off Jeff’s wrists.

“Ouch!” Jeff said, rubbing the red welts the tape left behind.

“I would’ve thought he’d be a bit more to reckon with,” the old man said to the lady.

“Have you seen that movie, Accidental Hero?” the woman asked and then nodded her head toward Jeff.

Jeff huffed. “Can I see Mother now?”

The woman nodded, and the old man stepped over to the phone and dialed something that made the gates roll back into hiding. Jeff followed the woman down the hall and onto an elevator. There were no buttons to push to indicate which level they wanted to go to, and Jeff remembered the building was only a single story. Still, he was surprised when the elevator descended and his stomach did the strange flipping thing that usually happened on a roller coaster.

“What is this, like NORAD?” Jeff asked.

The woman peered at him, blinked (without a shutter click, Jeff noted) and looked back at the door.

The doors finally slid open to reveal a plush lobby. The room was so welcoming, Jeff wanted to plop into an armchair and hang out. Overstuffed brown leather furniture and walls the color of a sun-bleached clay hut filled the room. A purplish-gray carpet lay on the ground; it was so thick that Jeff considered kicking off his shoes and burying his toes.

Her heels clicked as they walked down a hall with gleaming dark wood floors. She stopped in a doorway and said, “Ma’am, your son is here.”

“Who?” Sarah asked, just as Jeff stepped into view behind the woman. “Jeff? What are you doing here?”

“We apologize for the rough reception,” the woman said to Sarah and slipped past Jeff into the hall. A pulse in Jeff’s temple kept pace with the click-clack of her heels as she retreated.

“Hi, Mother,” he said, suddenly feeling like he’d made a bad decision to come. He stepped into her office, which was also warm and inviting. Two of the walls were a light gray and the other two were a medium gray. The carpet was just as thick as the lobby’s, but was the color of the deepest part of the sea, and made Jeff yearn to hold Oceanus.

A pleasant pastel painting of a tropical beach hung on one wall, and a large white board on another; tall bookshelves leaned against the third and the door on the fourth. Jeff noticed there were no certificates, family pictures or anything personal anywhere in the office.

“So, this is where you work, huh?” he said.

“Yes, unless I’m out on a mission. You’re lucky you caught me in, as a matter of fact. I just got back and was doing the paperwork.” Sarah nodded to the laptop on the desk in front of her. “You’d like what I was just doing, as a matter of fact.”

Jeff stepped toward her desk. “Was it Oci? Did you figure out where Mystic took her?”