The Nameless Hero (17 page)

“Of course, of course.” Cosgrove winked at me like we’d just shared a secret. “But I want to go back to this power struggle between you and nFinity.”

“Power struggle?”

“Are there any hard feelings now that you’ve clearly grasped the leadership role? And how do you think the others in the group feel? Are they taking sides, forced to choose between you and nFinity?”

The room pressed in on me. I didn’t know what to say
anymore. No matter how I answered, Cosgrove would twist my words into knots.

I glanced at Gavin, but he was frantically punching an email into his phone.

“Why don’t we move on?” Cosgrove prompted. “During the fight in Times Square, you and the clone you were riding knocked a billboard of Captain Justice off a building. Is it true that you targeted the Captain Justice advertisement as a way of showing that
you’re
the hottest new superhero in town—not him?”

“What? No!”

“So then why’d you do it?”

“To get away from the clones that were trailing me!”

“But there are hundreds of advertisements in Times Square. And you just
happened
to knock over the one with Captain Justice’s face on it. Seems like a pretty big coincidence to me. You’re telling me you didn’t even see who was on the billboard when you slammed into it?”

“Well, no—”

Cosgrove tapped on the table with a fingernail again. “So you
knew
it was a Captain Justice billboard? And you knocked it loose anyway?”

“I guess.”

“Interesting.” Cosgrove clicked the button on the tape recorder, and the red light went out. She dropped the recorder back into her handbag. “I think our readers are going to find the cover story on the Nameless Hero
very
enlightening.”

I scratched under my mask, confused. “Is that it?”

Cosgrove rose from her seat. “You’ve done a wonderful job, Nameless. People are going to love seeing you on the cover of
Super Scoop
.”

Gavin met Cosgrove at the door to the conference room, the blindfold hanging from one hand. She sighed but didn’t protest as Gavin tied it around her eyes. I have to admit, after the way the interview had just gone, I didn’t feel too bad when she accidentally bumped into the wall on her way out the door.

That was only the beginning. One by one, blindfolded reporters were led into the room and seated at the table in front of me, where they asked me the same questions again and again.

“How did it feel to save nFinity’s life?”

“What’s it like being the hottest young superhero on the planet?”

“Are you single?”

After a few hours of this, my brain felt like mashed potatoes. One answer blended into another, until it all began to seem like one big blur. For all I knew, I might’ve told the reporters what kind of underwear I had on underneath my uniform.

It was late by the time I finally returned to my bedroom, but Milton still wasn’t back. After peeling off my mask and uniform, I changed into a T-shirt and shorts before dropping onto my bed. I flipped through the channels on
the window until spotting a news report that was broadcasting a familiar scene: Times Square. People running for their lives. Multiplier and his clones buzzing above them like buzzards.

In the middle of all this was a single figure in a shining black uniform with red flames.

The Nameless Hero.

In the uniform and the mask … jumping off tall buildings … riding on the back of a clone … I really
did
look different. Stronger. Older. Heroic.

The recorded footage came to an end, replaced by a live feed of Times Square at night. The sidewalk was jammed with squealing preteen girls. It looked like something between a riot and a slumber party that had gotten out of hand.

“We looooove the Nameless Hero!” one of them screamed. Light from the camera reflected off a mouthful of orthodontic work. “He’s sooooo cute!”

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Girls at school
never
screamed like this about me. Unless you counted the time when I accidentally tripped in the cafeteria and landed face-first in Jenny Lewis’s pickle sandwich.

The girls on TV were still having their group panic attack session when there was a rattle in the doorway. A moment later, Milton stepped into the room.

I fumbled with the remote. The squealing girls disappeared from the window, replaced by a view of my backyard at night.

Milton loves everything about becoming a superhero. Even the tights. But what if he loses his best friend in the process?

“Is that what you’ve been doing all day?” Milton gave me a skeptical look. “Watching girls scream about how great you are?”

“No,” I said. “I was just channel surfing.”

Milton looked like he didn’t believe me.

“Actually, I’ve been giving interviews all afternoon.” I told him about Tiffany Cosgrove and how dull it was being cooped up in a conference room, answering the same questions over and over again.

“Sounds really tough.” Milton rolled his eyes.

Ignoring the sarcastic comment, I asked, “So, uh … how’d it go in the training hall?”

“They should call it the
torture
hall,” Milton muttered.

For the first time, I noticed how exhausted and beaten-up he looked. His uniform was torn. A trickle of blood dripped from a cut on his knee. Whatever they’d done during training, it must’ve been rougher than in the past.

“Gavin said we would’ve been defeated today if the Nameless Hero hadn’t stepped in to save us. So now he’s increasing the difficulty level of our training by about a million. So thanks, Nameless Hero.”

Milton made it sound like it was my fault that training was so hard on everyone.

“Not that you would know anything about that,” he said. “Since you managed to skip out on training. Again.”

I gave Milton a sharp look. “What’s
that
supposed to mean?”

Milton tossed his mask at the wall. “It means you sat around in a comfy chair all afternoon while the rest of us
were getting our butts kicked all up and down the training hall.”

I stood from the bed, suddenly defensive. “It’s not like I
wanted
to do all those interviews. Gavin didn’t give me any choice.”

“Just like you didn’t have any choice when it came to eating a private meal instead of going to the dining hall?” Milton’s voice grew louder. “Now that you’re a celebrity, you think you’re too good to eat with everyone else.”

“You wanted to be a part of this way more than I ever did. So don’t blame me now that—”

“Now that
what
? Now that you’re a star? Now that the rest of us get stuck training while you hang out with journalists?” Milton’s hands curled into fists. “Now that you can sit around watching all your adoring fans on TV?”

“Listen, Milton … I’m sorry.”

But he ignored me. Climbing into his bed, Milton turned his back to me. He must’ve been pretty wiped out, because he started snoring almost instantly.

Early the next morning, a pair of hands shook me roughly awake.

“Time to get up,” Trace said. “And make it quick. There isn’t much time.”

“What happened?” I croaked. Darkness hung over my bedroom. “Did Multiplier attack something else?”

“Worse. You’ve got publicity to do.” Trace snickered.
“Now get dressed in your uniform. Gavin wants to hit the air in fifteen minutes.”

On his way out the door, Trace flipped on the light. The sudden brightness burned my eyes, but it didn’t seem to have much of an effect on Milton. He went on snoring.

I considered waking him up to apologize about last night, but I’d slept over at his house enough over the years to know that Milton was the heaviest sleeper on the planet. Sasquatch could sit on his head and he wouldn’t flinch. So I left Milton snoozing and shut the bedroom door behind me.

I felt like I’d stepped into the life of a rock star.

After an hour in the air, the hover SUV descended into New York City. I gazed out the window at the crowd gathered below. There must’ve been hundreds of people. Kids, mostly. And they’d all come out to see me.

When I opened the door to the SUV, I was met by a chorus of screams. A swarm of paparazzi and preteen girls surged forward, trying to get a better look. Cameras flashed. Handmade signs waved above the crowd:

This was just a sneak preview. The entire day was a whirlwind of publicity. Appearances on morning shows,
interviews with radio DJs, a guest spot on a prime-time TV show. Gavin had every minute mapped out for me.

Everywhere I went, cameras flashed. Crowds screamed my name. Journalists trailed our SUV through the streets of New York. It got so bad that, by the end of the day, Gavin decided to check me into a hotel.

“We can’t risk the media trailing us back to headquarters,” he said as we pulled up in front of the Ritz-Carlton.

“
This
is the hotel you picked?” I looked out the window at the fancy entryway.

“You’re famous now,” Gavin said. “It’s time you start living that way. A celebrity like you can’t share a room.”

“I
like
sharing a room,” I said. “Can’t Milton stay here too? And Sophie and everybody else?”

“They need to stay at headquarters for training.”

“How come I’m not training anymore? All I do is give interviews and get my picture taken.”

Gavin sighed, like he’d had this conversation a million times before. “That’s a part of the job, Nameless—”

“Nobody else is here. You don’t have to call me that.”

“You may as well get used to it. People are going to be calling you the Nameless Hero for a long, long time.”

I shrugged. “For the summer, at least.”

“Yes, well …” Gavin cracked his knuckles. “We’ll see about that.”

I was still wondering what he meant by that last comment when the door to the SUV opened. The next thing I knew, I was out on the sidewalk. Hotel employees struggled
to keep the mob of fans and photographers away from the hotel entry.