The Accidental Hero

by Matt Myklusch

  “They become supervillains?” Jack guessed.

  “I try not to use that term,” Jazen said. “There are some real villains out there, sure—people who use their powers to do whatever they want, no matter who gets hurt. But some people who get labeled as supervillains are just misunderstood. Not everyone’s looking to take over the world.”

  “Some people just don’t want to be heroes, either,” Blue added. “That’s okay; it’s a lot of pressure being a hero. Some people would rather just go on about their lives, like Gramps here.” Blue gestured toward an old man carrying around a two-ton jet, looking for a parking space.

  “Coming through!” the old man grumbled as he pushed past them.

  As Jack, Blue, and Jazen walked to the other end of the flight deck, glowing letters that took the place of signs started scrolling through the air around them. They flashed out the words HALL OF RECORDS in an endless loop. Jack followed the signs through the cavernous hall. As he neared the other end, Jack noticed several flying surveillance cameras skittering about in the air. Eventually, they scurried over to him. Each one was about the size of a winged football, with “SmartCorp” written on the side in shiny blue lettering.

  “Blue. SmartCams,” Jazen said, pointing to the flying cameras.

  “I see ’em,” Blue said, reaching out to shove one away. “Go bother somebody else,” he muttered as the SmartCam skidded through the air and bumped into one of its compatriots.

  “Sorry, Jack, these things are everywhere lately,” Jazen explained. “They’re really annoying.” The SmartCam whirred around them with a series of angry, offended beeps, but kept its distance as they rode a turbolift up to the records room.

  The Hall of Records was carved deep into the rocky interior of the island’s base, and was even more crowded than the flight deck. It was a customs and security checkpoint just like in an airport, except instead of bustling tourists and passengers, it was jam-packed with super-humans, robots, and aliens. There were giants who were bigger than Blue waiting in line next to monsters and people with four arms. The ceiling must have been at least a hundred feet high, and Jack looked up to see superpowered fliers waiting in midair lines. Words continued to flow through the air, blinking out directions like RESIDENT ALIENS, RETURNING CITIZENS, and SECURITY CHECKPOINT. Everyone was producing paperwork and going through security checks. There were big, transparent X-ray panels at the head of each line for people to step behind, and Jack could see right through to people’s skeletons.

  Jack and the others navigated the crowd past winding lines of people, as well as advertisements that flashed off the walls like pop-up banners from the Internet, calling OUT SMARTCORP: BRINGING YOU TOMORROW… TODAY! and SMARTCORP: THE FUTURE is NOW! Jazen led the way through the great room with a swagger, and Blue swatted away SmartCams that buzzed around like gnats. They made their way to a completely empty line next to the words NEW VISITORS.

  The podium at the head of the line stood empty. Jazen hit a signal light, requesting service. “You see how many new visitors we get these days, Jack? We don’t even staff the line anymore,” he said, shaking his head. “Let’s get started on the paperwork while we wait.” Jazen gestured to a row of glowing forms floating next to the line and snatched one from the air. When his hand touched it, it turned into a solid piece of paper with a blinking cursor flashing on the page.

  “What’s that?” Jack asked.

  “SmartPaper,” Jazen said. He showed Jack an immigration form with blank spaces for Name, Code Name, Age, Date of Birth, and other similar information. “It’s like a computerized sheet of paper. It’s just as thin as regular paper, but you can edit it like it’s still on a computer screen. You can highlight stuff, delete things, change fonts, whatever you want. It’s another tangital. Smile!” Jazen said, holding the page up like a camera in front of Jack’s face. A light flashed and Jack’s head-shot was inserted directly into the top-right corner of the form.

  “This is awesome!” Jack said, grabbing the paper to check it out. The back of the page read “Another SmartCorp innovation.”

  “What’s SmartCorp?” Jack asked.

  “The biggest company in the world,” Jazen answered. “They do business all around the globe, but under a lot of different fake names. You’d be amazed at who some of their front companies are. Tangitals and Hard-Light Holos were invented by the owner of the company, a man named Jonas Smart.”

  “He also invented HoverPads, SmartCams, MagLev roads, and a ton of other things,” Blue added. “In addition to being the senior member of Empire City’s Inner Circle, he also runs SmartCorp. These days, that means he pretty much runs Empire City.”

  “He must be a genius,” Jack said. “Do you think I’ll get to meet him?”

  “Probably sooner than you think,” Blue said, looking at Jazen. The expression that Jazen returned silenced the giant.

  Jazen tried to fill out the form for Jack but couldn’t put in much. He didn’t know Jack’s real last name, birthday, or any family information. However, there was one section that they could try to figure out on their own: the description of superpowers.

  “I don’t know,” Jack said, still somewhat skeptical. “Trust me, I’ve spent a lot of time reading comic books and thinking about superpowers. A lot of time. If I had any powers myself, I think I’d know about it.”

  “Not necessarily,” Jazen explained. “Especially at your age. Depending on the power, you probably wouldn’t even be deliberately controlling it. But in times of stress, excitement, or fear… there are flare-ups.”

  Jack thought about it for a minute. He had to admit, that did sound like him.

  “You said weird stuff happens around you,” Blue said. “Weird like what? Weird like this morning with the Rüstov?”

  “No, nothing like that,” Jack said. “Machines act funny around me—that’s it. Maybe I make them break and stuff?”

  “I don’t know,” Jazen said, stepping behind an X-ray screen at the head of the line. The X-ray panel revealed Jazen’s insides to be a mechanized system filled with millions of flashing lights and wires hiding underneath his skin. “Something tells me that’s not it.”

  Jack nearly fell over when presented with the sight of Jazen’s electronic insides. “You’re a robot?” Jack exclaimed.

  “I’m an android” Jazen replied. “A bioengineered Mecha with a human appearance. Here, check it out.”

  Jazen rolled up his sleeve and double-tapped his inner forearm. Jack watched as short bursts of compressed air escaped Jazen’s arm and a panel of skin dropped down and slid away. Inside, a complex circuit board lit up like a slot machine. Jack latched on to Jazen’s arm and peered inside for a closer look. Jazen’s skin felt soft and natural, but there was no denying the hard steel frame and circuitry underneath.

  “That’s why you set off the alarms back at the harbor,” Jack said, fascinated by Jazen’s inner workings. “This is so cool! I can’t believe you’re a robot!” he exclaimed.

  “Android,” Blue corrected again. “Jazen’s an android. We call ’em Mechas here in Empire City.”

  “And look at that,” Jazen said, pointing to a digital display near his wrist. It read that all systems were operating at 100 percent capacity. “I feel fine around you, so your powers have got to be something else.”

  “Yeah,” Blue added, “besides, you steered the Vision like you’d done it a million times before. That’s a pretty big machine.”

  “That was weird,” Jack admitted. “It was like the ship just knew what I wanted to do. I was surprised that it came so easy, but I was too psyched to even think about it.”

  “Interesting…,” Jazen said, thinking.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about being a ro—I mean, android, earlier?” Jack asked.

  “I didn’t want to blow your mind,” Jazen said. “You passed out when you saw Blue; I didn’t know what you’d do when you saw this.”

  “This is the coolest thing ever,” Jack said again, sticking his hand behind
the X-ray panel to get a look at his own bones, then sticking Jazen’s hand in next to compare. Meanwhile, someone finally appeared behind the podium. It was time to get down to business.

  The customs clerk was a space alien whose skin had a gray and black quality that emitted a white glow. He looked like a black-and-white film negative. “Can I help you?” he asked in an annoyed tone. His voice had an echolike reverberation that gave Jack the chills.

  “You can try,” Jazen replied. “Emissary Jazen Knight.” He flashed his badge. “I’m here to process this boy for entry into the Imagine Nation.”

  The clerk paused a moment, as if he didn’t quite hear Jazen correctly. “A new visitor?” he asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “This line is not open, sir,” said the clerk. He started to walk away, but Jazen grabbed his wrist.

  “Then I suggest you open it,” Jazen said. “As far as I know, the borders of the Imagine Nation aren’t closed.”

  The clerk locked eyes with Jazen for a moment, but quickly lost the staring contest with the emissary. He could see that Jazen wasn’t backing down. “No, sir, the borders are not officially closed,” the clerk said, pausing to look up at a SmartCam that was trained directly on him. He then leaned in toward Jazen and spoke softly. “But it is our understanding that in these trying times, with the Rüstov threat to our planet still lingering, that all emissaries have been discouraged from bringing new visitors to the Imagine Nation.”

  “Interesting,” Jazen replied. “I guess I didn’t get the memo. I’ve actually been encouraged to bring this boy here.” Jazen held up Jack’s forms in front of the clerk. “Let’s get started.” The clerk still hesitated.

  “I’d do what he says if I were you,” Blue said, bearing down on the clerk. “You see, I’m here with them, and I really don’t have a lot of patience for waiting in lines.”

  The clerk’s lips quivered as he stared up at Blue. He reluctantly took the form and fed it into the screen of his holo-computer, grumbling about how he better not get in trouble for this. The page broke up into a million data bytes, then reassembled in the proper order, projected in the air next to the podium with most of the information still missing.

  “Relax,” Jazen said to the clerk. “For all we know, this boy’s a returning citizen. We don’t have any info on his background. You’re going to need to run a scan to find out who he is.”

  “Put your finger there, please,” the clerk said, indicating a red dot on the podium. Jack did as he was told, and a needle pricked his finger.

  “Ow!” he said, pulling back his hand.

  “It’s just a little pinprick,” the clerk said in a curt tone. “We need a drop of blood for the DNA scan. See? It’s searching the database now.”

  Jack looked up at the screen that displayed a single drop of his blood. It read SEARCHING.

  “I can’t believe this,” Jack said. “Am I seriously going to find out my real name right now? I mean, what if I still have family here? I might have relatives, a home…” Jack held his tongue, forcing himself to say no more, but he couldn’t help thinking about what else might be waiting for him in Empire City. There might even be a mom and dad.

  A ding sounded and a light on the screen flashed green.

  “We have a match,” the clerk said, a little surprised.

  Jack’s heart leaped. “You do?” he exclaimed. “Really?”

  “Looks like you have been here before.” The clerk nodded. “We’ll just pull up your birth certificate, and… wait a minute.” Before the clerk could finish, the screen froze and started flashing red. The screen zoomed in on Jack’s blood drop to reveal millions of tiny microchips floating inside of it. Jazen and Blue leaned in toward the screen with confused looks on their faces. “Nanites in the blood?” the clerk exclaimed as he watched the screen in disbelief.

  “What the?” Jazen said. “No, that can’t be right.”

  “What can’t be right?” Jack asked. “What’s going on? Where’s my file?”

  “Legend’s ghost!” the clerk gasped, clapping a hand over his mouth. He looked at Jack and his white glow intensified greatly. Jack got a real bad feeling in the pit of his stomach as the fear rose up in the clerk’s face.

  “Hang on a second,” Jazen began. “Don’t-zzzt-don’t-zzzt-don’t…”

  Jazen stopped in place like a frozen computer as the clerk slammed his hand down on an alarm and screamed, “RÜSTOV!!!”

  Heads spun around from every direction as the alarm sounded. People shrieked in terror. Shock and confusion took over the crowd as the sirens wailed in the background.

  The orderly crowd in the Hall of Records devolved into a frenzied mob running for the exits. The room turned to chaos, and hundreds of people ran, flew, and teleported out every available door. SmartCams zoomed in and started buzzing around Jack with flashing lights as an alarm blared over and over:

  “INFECTION! ALARM! QUARANTINE! INFECTION! ALARM! QUARANTINE!”

  “I don’t get it,” Jazen said, regaining his movement. “I had a glitch. I never glitch!” He looked at Jack.

  “How can he be infected?” Blue asked. “Look at him, he’s fine!”

  “What do you mean, infected?” Jack asked. “What’s happening? What about my file?”

  Jazen looked around and pulled Jack in close to protect him. “I think we might have to wait on that,” he said just before something blew a hole in the wall behind them. It wasn’t an explosion. It was a man. When the smoke cleared, they were surrounded by a group of tough-looking superheroes and a legion of soldiers with laser rifles.

  “I hate to say I told you so,” Blue said to Jazen. “But I told you so.”

  Jack, Jazen, and Blue were taken to a secure room somewhere above the Hall of Records. It wasn’t the worst room to be stuck in, since it had a majestic view of the waterfalls that surrounded the island. Still, the team of supers that escorted Jack in there had no intention of letting him leave. They were called the Peacemakers.

  The Peacemakers all wore the same black supersuits, complete with the SmartCorp logo and different colors specific to each team member. While waiting, Jazen and Blue explained to Jack that the Peacemakers were a private security force, not real police. They were founded as a result of some ill-advised laws passed shortly after the Rüstov invasion to ensure the security of the Imagine Nation. There were several Peacemaker teams like this one, each with just enough authority to be truly dangerous. They were empowered to act as judge, jury, and executioner when it came to the Rüstov. For obvious reasons, that didn’t sit well with Jack.

  “What are we doing here?” Jack wanted to know. “What’s going to happen to me?”

  “Don’t worry about it, Jack,” Blue said. “We just have to hang here until Jazen sorts this out. This is all a big mistake. It’s gotta be.”

  “The only mistake was you thinking you could sneak a Rüstov into the Imagine Nation,” said Surge, the Peacemaker team leader who was a human power cell. Instead of blood, he had pure energy coursing through his veins. He was so filled with power, it leaked out his eyes and mouth if he didn’t release it. The red lines on his suit glowed brightly as his charge built up to full capacity. Harrier, the woman next to him, was a walking arsenal: a bionic commando with golden body armor, a winged jet pack, and more guns than any one person could possibly need. Finally, there was Speedrazor, a thin but superfast Peacemaker with pale white skin and straight black hair that went down to his shoulders. His skintight black suit cut off at the forearms, revealing shiny silver hands with fingers sharp as knives. Jack decided he didn’t like these Peacemakers one bit.

  “What are we waiting for?” Speedrazor railed from across the room. “The child is infected. Once the Rüstov takes root, the host is already dead.” Jack blinked and the man crossed the room and placed his knifelike fingers to Jack’s throat. “We have to put him out of his misery. For his sake as well as ours! This is exactly what the Peacemaker teams were created for!”

  “He�
��s not infected!” Jazen said, grabbing Speedrazor’s shoulder. “You touch one hair on that boy’s head and Blue is going to make sure you get a real close look at those waterfalls out there.”

  Blue glared at Speedrazor. “You think you’re fast enough?” Blue asked. Speedrazor scowled and dropped his hand away from Jack’s neck.

  “Too bad,” Harrier observed. She fine-tuned the laser sights on an oversized gun. “It would be a mercy.”

  “Says you,” Blue replied. “Don’t pay ’em no mind, Jack. These Peacemakers are just glorified rent-a-cops, if you ask me. Corporate mercenaries.”

  Speedrazor smirked mockingly. “Sticks and stones may break my bones…”

  “That sounds like a good idea to me,” Blue cut in. “You threaten Jack again and I just might.”

  “You’re not going to do anything,” Surge said. “This is a Rüstov matter. We outrank you here.”

  “You don’t outrank me,” Jazen cut in. “Jack is a charge in my custody. He can’t be touched and you know it. As an emissary of the Imagine Nation, I can only be overruled by the Inner Circle on this.”

  “We’ve called the Inner Circle,” Surge said, his eyes gleaming with power.

  “So, we’ll wait until the Circleman gets here,” Jazen said. “Until then? Stay on your side of the room. We’ll stay on ours.”

  Jack rubbed his neck where Speedrazor’s bladelike fingers had scraped his skin. He was lucky to have Jazen and Blue there to defend him. Jack was used to standing up for himself, but these bullies were a lot tougher than Rex Staples and his coffee breath.

  “Jazen, what’s the Inner Circle?” Jack asked under his breath.

  “A group of very powerful beings,” Jazen answered. “They’re elected from each borough of Empire City to govern and defend the Imagine Nation. I think one of them might have wanted me to bring you here. With any luck, he’ll get here before their boss does.”

  “Jazen, what if they’re right?” Jack asked. “What if the Rüstov from this morning infected me somehow? Can that happen?”