The Nameless Hero (19 page)

That was a really nice thought.

So I read the lines again. And again. And so many times after that, I lost count. Each time, my mom’s words thudded in my ears a little louder.
He’s just a product being sold to the masses
. That was what she’d said about the Nameless Hero. And maybe she had a point.

A few hours into the photo shoot, the studio door opened, and the rest of the Alliance of the Impossible entered. It was the first time I’d seen my friends in more than a week, and just being in the same room with them boosted my mood.

Unfortunately, not everyone was as excited about our reunion. Milton stood at the edge of the group, scowling at me in a way that jolted my memory back to the argument we’d had back in my artificial bedroom. He was obviously still mad.

Once the director called a break in the shoot, I jogged
across the studio to see if I could talk him into forgiving me.

“Hey,” I said. “If you’re interested, I can probably hook you up with some free zit cream.”

Milton didn’t even chuckle. He only shrugged, grumbling something that sounded like, “Hey.”

“So—um …” I stared down at my feet. “Sorry about what happened.”

“I’m surprised you even remember that,” he said. “You haven’t been back since.”

“Gavin won’t let me. He says he doesn’t want to risk paparazzi following us. So I’m stuck staying in a hotel room by myself.”

“Sounds horrible.” It was impossible to miss the sarcasm in his voice. “At least we get a chance to stand around watching you film your commercial, right?”

Frustration stirred inside me. I’d come over to apologize, but Milton only wanted to make things worse. When I spoke up again, I could feel anger surging behind each word.

“It’s not my fault I’m more famous than you.”

I wished I could get the words back as soon as I’d spoken them. Milton’s expression was half surprise, half disgust, as if he couldn’t believe that I’d just admitted to all the terrible things he’d been thinking about me.

“I guess what
Super Scoop
said about you is right,” Milton hissed. “You
do
think you’re better than the rest of us.”

I stared back at him, stunned. “What’re you talking about?”

Milton reached into one of the many pouches in his uniform and pulled out a rolled-up magazine.

“Here.” He shoved the copy of
Super Scoop
into my hand. “Read for yourself.”

Milton stomped away, leaving me alone with the magazine.

Looking down at the cover, I saw myself staring back at me. In the photo, I was striking a pose in my mask and uniform. Next to my picture was bold text that read:

I opened the magazine and flipped past glossy shots of superheroes walking their dogs and hanging out in cafés, until I found the article I was looking for.

The more I read, the angrier I got. Tiffany Cosgrove had made me look like some kind of spoiled celebrity superbrat—escorted everywhere in my own personal hover SUV, demanding over-the-top (and bizarre) food combinations from room service.

According to one tipster
, the article stated,
the Nameless Hero refuses to spend his time in the same training facility as the rest of the Alliance of the Impossible. Instead, he demands a fancy hotel suite all to himself
.

It only got worse from there. A photo showed me next to the eight-year-old girl who’d asked for my autograph.
I was standing there with a dumbfounded look on my masked face while the girl stumbled backward. Of course, Trace had been the one to pull her out of my way. But since Trace had been invisible at the time, it looked like
I’d
just shoved the girl.

Beside the photograph was a block of bold text that read:

The Nameless Hero showing his fan how he
really
feels
.

I swallowed an angry breath and went on reading. It was like witnessing one of my parents’ evil schemes. No matter how upset it made me, I couldn’t look away.

Cosgrove spent an entire page describing the “power struggle” between nFinity and me.
The Nameless Hero isn’t satisfied with just taking the leadership role from nFinity. He’s also on a mission to take nFinity’s celebrity status—

I stopped reading when I noticed out of the corner of my eye that someone was approaching. Glancing up from the page, I caught sight of something that caused my insides to squirm.

nFinity.

The magazine dropped out of my hands. A second before, I’d been reading about how much we hated each other. And now here he was. In person. It was as if he’d climbed out of the page just to punch my lights out.

I hoped he didn’t take any of that as seriously as Milton had. The last thing I needed was to get into a fight with a guy whose hands doubled as flamethrowers.

I felt slightly better when nFinity flashed me an easygoing
grin. He pointed at the magazine I’d just dropped. “I do the same thing whenever I read
Super Scoop
. Except I usually drop it into the nearest trash can.”

“I—I just want you to know,” I spluttered, “none of that stuff is true.”

“Don’t worry.” nFinity brushed his hair off his forehead like it was no big deal. “I’ve read enough lies about myself in that magazine to never trust anything they print. Actually, I just came over to say congratulations.”

“Congratulations? For what?”

“The new endorsement deal. Pimple Prevention Power.” nFinity patted me on the shoulder, smiling. “I’d heard they were looking for a new spokesperson for a while now.”

“Really? Who was their old spokesperson?”

nFinity’s smile wavered slightly. “Me.”

Being the official spokesperson for advanced acne cream wasn’t exactly my dream job, and I wasn’t sure whether to apologize to nFinity for taking his place or offer it back to him.

I spotted Milton chatting with Sophie in the corner. I was too far away to hear what he was saying, but I had a feeling it was about me. And it was probably all bad.

I turned back to nFinity. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” he said. “What’s up?”

“How did your friends react when you … uh—became famous?”

A hint of sadness passed over nFinity’s features. “A nasty side effect of becoming famous is that you lose some of your best friends in the process.”

“If that’s the case, I’d rather keep my friends and not be famous.”

“Unfortunately, you don’t always get to choose.” From the look on his face, it was obvious he was speaking from experience.

“If I could just spend a little more time with Milton at headquarters, maybe I could make things better.”

“Haven’t you heard? We were forced to leave. That’s why Trace brought us here.”

“Forced to leave?” My brain stumbled to keep up. “Why?”

nFinity lowered his voice. “Brandy went missing.”

I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach by one of Multiplier’s clones.

“Brandy’s … missing?” I asked. “What happened?”

“Nobody knows for sure,” nFinity said. “She left headquarters last night without telling anyone. Gavin’s afraid she’s been secretly working with Multiplier the entire time.”

I shook my head. None of this made sense. “That’s impossible. Brandy wouldn’t do that.”

I’d expected nFinity to agree with me, but he didn’t seem so sure. “Gavin says she took a bunch of secret surveillance tapes from headquarters with her. He’s convinced she passed them on to Multiplier so he’ll be able to infiltrate headquarters. Until Gavin tracks her down, it’s not safe for us there anymore.”

My memory skipped back over the interactions I’d had with Brandy, wondering if there was any truth to what
nFinity had said. Of all the adults involved with the Alliance of the Impossible, Brandy was the only one who actually seemed to care about me and the other kids.

Had it all been just an act?

Even if I had trouble picturing Brandy betraying us, I could at least see how she would make the perfect spy. She’d spent her entire life pretending to be someone else. Shifting from one person to another. Taking on an entirely new face and new personality each time.

Maybe she’d been doing the same with us all along.

“Okay, everyone—back to work!” The director stepped forward, waving his arms to get our attention. “If you’re not a part of this shoot, then I need you out of the way. That includes you.” The director turned his glare on nFinity. “Can’t have you distracting our actor, now, can we?”

“I used to
be
the actor,” nFinity muttered in a voice that only I could hear. He usually looked so cool, so well arranged. But for a moment, I saw a flash of bitterness on his face. For an instant it was clear: losing his place with Triple-P was a bigger disappointment than he would ever admit.

Then the look changed to something else—surprise. Following his gaze toward the side doors, I realized what had caught nFinity’s attention.

A silver sphere came rolling into the studio. It was about the size of a beach ball, but from the heavy sound of it
passing over the floor, I guessed it was made of metal. The ball rolled a few feet, then shifted direction just in time to avoid a bank of lights. It turned again—and again—dodging people and equipment with way too much accuracy to be a coincidence.

Someone was steering it.

The sight jolted my memory back to AwesomeWorld and the silver sphere that had fallen from the sky. This one looked the same—only a whole lot bigger. There was no question who’d been responsible the last time a mysterious silvery object had appeared out of nowhere: Phineas Vex. Was he planning to send the world another message?

I readied myself for an attack. But not everyone was so concerned.

“Okay, who brought the toy?” the director called out as the ball rolled steadily in his direction. His expression grew angrier and angrier as the sphere got closer and closer. “This isn’t playtime, people! We’ve got work to—”

He was interrupted by a sharp
click!
The sphere snapped open like a puzzle coming apart—from one single round shape to dozens of pieces, twisting and rearranging themselves in fluid motions. The silver ball had become something else entirely.

A metal scorpion.

The thing was half my height, with a pair of ultrasharp claws, shining black eyes, and a curved tail that narrowed to a daggerlike point.

With a robotic arachnid staring him down, the director didn’t look quite so angry anymore. His face went slack
with fear. “Actually, I think we’ve got enough footage for the commercial.” He gulped. “That’s a wrap, folks!”

The director took off running wildly. This snapped the rest of the crew into motion. In an instant, everyone was fleeing for the exits. But they didn’t get very far. More silver spheres came rolling through the doors, blocking every possible escape.

Screams filled the studio as each of the spheres popped open, their parts rearranging to become scorpions.

There were five in all. The robots edged toward us from all sides, corralling everyone as if we were sheep. Looking into the dark eyes of the nearest one made me want to retreat deeper into the crowd. But that wasn’t the way things worked. At least, not while I was wearing a uniform, parading around as a famous superhero. People expected me to protect crowds, not hide in them.

“They came here for us.” I raised my voice, hoping I sounded more confident than I felt. “There are five of them. One for each of us. Let’s give them what they came for.”

I caught a glimpse of Milton. He looked back at me grudgingly but stepped forward all the same.

The rest of the team emerged from the crowd, preparing for the fight. But when I tried to join them, Gavin gripped my arm.

“
You’re
not going anywhere,” he stated firmly. “I’ve got three weeks of publicity scheduled and an entire line of merchandise on the way. I can’t risk your getting hurt.”

“But they need my help,” I protested.

“They’ll be fine. They’ve prepared for this.”

“You mean, while I was on the Nameless Hero celebrity tour?”

Gavin didn’t say anything, but his grip on my arm tightened.

For a long moment, nobody moved. The tension crackled like static. And then Miranda took action. A scorpion lunged forward, but she was ready for it. Grabbing a nearby camera stand like it was a battle-ax, she smacked the robot sideways.

The others took this as their cue to join the fight. nFinity released a sheet of fire that sent a robot scrambling backward. Sophie sidestepped the claws of one scorpion and landed a superpowered kick in the midsection of another. Milton’s rocket boots propelled him up and over an attacking robot.

But with Gavin holding me back, the Alliance of the Impossible was outnumbered. And by the looks of it, the scorpions had enough armor to withstand pretty much any attack. A blast of fire, a roundhouse to the stomach, getting whacked with camera equipment? These assaults barely fazed them.