Got To Be A Hero (The Accidental Hero Series Book 1)

by Paul Duffau

  Her mother’s mouth opened once, twice, but no words came out, though bright blossoms lit on pale cheekbones.

  Her father responded first. His demeanor changed in an instant, the relaxed Sunday-morning man replaced with the Monday-morning police interrogator. “How do you know this?”

  His voice chilled her. She recounted surprising the pair as she ran back from the lagoon. He probed for additional details and sounded exasperated at the paucity of her memory.

  “I don’t remember anything else. I . . . they . . . I wanted to get away from them,” she exclaimed with a shudder.

  Raymond glared at Sasha. “When you get the logs, make sure to bring everything that Aric has been associated with. I want his timesheets, security logins, keyloggers, any video of him. If you have a piece of data on him, I want it.”

  “Aric would never betray—”

  Her father interrupted, cold and precise in his mannerisms, the consummate cop. “I don’t know that, and I certainly don’t know that of a Wilder who’s been covering up her level of skill.” He faced Kenzie. “She was the only other one that showed any mastery in the class yesterday, correct?”

  “Harold told you,” she said. Followed with, “You were checking up on me.”

  “I was checking up on you because the range and power of the magic that you are exhibiting can be dangerous. I need to know where you’re at if I am to provide the proper guidance; not as your father, but as a wizard. Why else do you think I offered to teach you about the wards? You are ready, even if your control is highly suspect.”

  Kenzie saw the truth in the words, along with something else he did not mention. He hadn’t sought to teach her any exotic incantations. Wards were steady, unspectacular, and, for wizards in jeopardy, essential to continued health.

  “Wards require precision,” she said, understanding that the practice held a dual purpose of protection and training. “And I now have another means of self-defense. That’s why, isn’t it.”

  “Yes,” he said, holding his gaze steady on her. “On both counts. I want you safe.”

  He turned back to Sasha.

  Kenzie saw a fleeting moment of cunning expose itself before her mother could cover it with outrage. “I would think that you would have higher priorities than bothering Aric, considering our daughter is threatened by criminals you still have not caught.” Her protests held an accusation but possessed a forced quality.

  “Every scrap of data,” the cop said, discounting her deflection. “Today.”

  Curiosity almost made her stay. But common sense told Kenzie to get the hell away from what was going to be a major fight, so she fled, coffee in hand, back to her room. The voices below escalated. Through her closed door, she could hear them tearing into each other. Back pressed against the door, she gathered her wits. At least she didn’t have to figure out how to get them both out of the house, she thought with a twist to her lips. She pulled her phone from the bathrobe pocket.

  Mitch had texted not once, but twice. She must have missed the second buzz when her parents opened up on each other. The format lent itself to terseness. In the first message, Mitch had conveyed the fact that the weather had returned to a normal Seattle gloom. She smiled. The second text simply said Good morning. The smile faded. He had said at the yogurt shop to give him thirty minutes after his text, and he’d meet her at the back of the garage. He was probably on his way.

  He could not get here that soon. An image of Mitch in the backyard, both parents confronting him, alarmed her. A couple of hours, she thought, at least. It would take that long for the fight to wind up, plus her parents would have to get ready to leave the house. She tapped in a hasty response she’d be busy until noon.

  Phone clenched in her hand, she listened to the controlled yelling downstairs. She discovered with some surprise that she sympathized with her father. He kept showing flashes of humanity, that he cared about her. She wasn’t so sure the same was true of her mother, who seemed more concerned about the enchantress that Kenzie was becoming than the girl she was.

  The cell vibrated. He’d gotten the message.

  She set a protective web, analyzed it, and released it. Each iteration came a smidge faster, the web a small measure tighter. She also found that it centered on her. When she moved, it moved with her.

  She had wheedled her father to set his barrier at the edge of the property so she could go outside. Unlike her drifting hemispheric domes, his clung to the perimeter wall like a floating curtain, following the contours around the home. It created a cool effect in the magic like that of an aurora borealis that only a few could see. He had tied a capture function to the webbings, combined with an alert.

  The totality of the weave was far superior to the limited ward she had brushed aside on Friday night. More than anything he said, the upgrade in the protection told her how concerned he really was. She expanded hers until it touched his. A tingle touched her fingertips. She withdrew, noticing the quiver in both webs.

  Can magic interact with other magic? she wondered.

  A branch lifted up on the hillside, distracting her.

  Kenzie saw Mitch clambering down through the stout vegetation, taking a direct route instead of the deer trail she had followed. His torso was turned so he could use the sides of his shoes for purchase against the leaf-covered slope. He glanced in her direction, bobbed his head.

  He’d seen her. Good. Kenzie went to the protected point in the wall. She called out when he was still twenty feet away. “Hi. Be careful. Don’t touch the wall. My dad has some warnings set up that will trip if you try to climb over.”

  Only after she finished did she realize that she’d used “dad” instead of “father.”

  “Well, how do we talk then?” came Mitch’s annoyed reply, followed by a prompt, “Never mind, got an idea.”

  He slid the rest of the way down the hill, disappearing behind the wall. A second later, a lanky leg snaked up and over a branch of a tree that overlooked the rear of her house. The rest of him swung around the pivot point.

  “There,” he said, scanning the surrounding area. He appeared satisfied that they were alone as he kept speaking, though he kept the volume down. “Next problem is yours. How do I get a phone to you without tripping off the whatever doohickey your dad has set up?”

  “Toss it, I guess.” Kenzie moved away from the hard surface of the garage wall and stood on the grass.

  “Why won’t that set it off?”

  “Do you always ask so many questions,” asked Kenzie, glaring at him. Her lips twitched, though, and she snorted. “It only seems to work on living things.”

  “What about birds? Or squirrels?”

  “Would you toss me the phone,” said Kenzie. “There’s a minimum threshold, I think.” She closed her eyes. “Yeah, I can change it to respond differently depending on the sensitivity limits.”

  “Shame it doesn’t work on inanimate objects,” Mitch said. “Be nice to have a force field.” He held the phone, with a hard case to protect it, in his hand. “Catch.”

  She did.

  “I think I found where my mother hid the memory storage,” she said.

  Mitch nodded. “Good. I got Lassiter to agree to let us set up the meeting point.” He said it nonchalantly and wouldn’t meet her eyes. “How soon until you can actually get it? We need to verify the data, and we should copy it. It might be a handy insurance policy for us. I’m assuming that your mother has it backed up, too, but no sense in taking chances.”

  Kenzie’s eyes narrowed. How had he . . . ? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

  “Where did you set it up for?” she asked.

  “I didn’t specify,” said Mitch, perched in the crook of the branch, leaves fluttering around him. He looked like a delinquent Peter Pan. “But I was thinking that we should keep it close, so Seward Park again. This time we should be up at the picnic area. You know it, right?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “It’s awfully open. And crowded this time of year.”
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  “I expect Lassiter to do the exchange at night. It’s easier to cover your tracks.” Mitch glanced down at her. “How soon can you get it?”

  A jot of worry made her shake her head. “I don’t know. It’s in a safe.”

  “So jigger the tumblers,” said Mitch.

  Kenzie started in surprise. “Do you have any idea how much control fine actions like that take? No, I’ll have to figure out the combination.”

  Mitch pursed his lips like he was ready to say something, and then seemed to think better of it. “Your mother the kind of person to write the combination down?”

  With a shrug, Kenzie answered, “I don’t know. I didn’t even know they had a safe until yesterday.”

  Mitch adjusted his position, the springy foliage bouncing around him.

  Kenzie moved closer to the wall until ten feet separated them. Mitch looked worn at the edges despite the lightness of his voice. He lifted his left shoulder in a self-deprecating gesture. A small smile showed for a moment.

  Kenzie crossed her hands at her waist. “I wish you could come down here,” said Kenzie, her shoulders undulating with the words.

  The smile flashed and vanished. “You could come up.”

  They sighed at the same time.

  “You’re not wearing that necklace.” Mitch made a circular motion with his finger at the base of his throat. “It’s . . . I like it.”

  Kenzie’s fingertips pressed into the notch at the base of her throat. “I can’t wear it here,” she said. She hurried on because Mitch was sure to ask anyway. “It came from . . . someplace else.” She widened her eyes to keep him from pursuing it further. He got the hint.

  “It looks good on you” was all he said. He did another survey.

  Kenzie shuffled her feet. Looking over her shoulder, she said, “I should go. I need to figure out the safe while they’re gone.”

  That earned her a nod.

  “Yeah, I should get busy, too.” His gaze hardened and the lines on his face sharpened as his attention drifted inward. “We need to meet someplace where we can talk without the whole world listening in. No offense, but this is not safe. I don’t think Lassiter is the only problem you have.”

  His sudden divergence confused her.

  “What else?” she asked. “It’s not like it can get any worse.”

  “I think Hunter’s family is looking for you.”

  Chapter 45

  Mitch made the final adjustments to the bot. He had already switched the power supply from the base AC they used in the lab for a DC battery. This was a planned modification since they would run on battery power for competition anyway.

  Test time. He placed the compromised cell phone into a holder on the bot and hit the button to initiate the series of movements programmed for the pincher fingers. Like a metallic mother caressing an electronic baby, one finger ran a tip down the side of the phone, pausing at the power button. The screen came to life in a splash of color. The vibration of the phone starting altered its position in the grip of the pinchers. Mitch squinted. Should be okay, he thought, but decided he should add a bushing to alleviate the motion.

  The next programmed function was the tricky one. His phone was built with a capacitive touch screen. Since the human body possessed an electromagnetic field of its own, his finger would distort the field of the screen whenever he wanted to call or surf. The robot finger was electronically inert, so Mitch got creative. Emulating the more expensive capacitive styluses on the market, he jury-rigged one of Alice’s fingers to be reactive to the phone.

  Mitch held his breath as the digit extended and tapped at the screen. If his measurements were accurate, the first tap would bring the phone to life, and the second would start the sequence to dial a preprogrammed number.

  The second motion missed the target. He groaned but made another minute adjustment. Before testing again, he scrounged and found a piece of rubber thin enough to work as a shock absorber. Powering down the phone, he restarted the test from the beginning.

  This time everything worked to perfection as the house phone started ringing. He heard his uncle answer it, mutter, “Stupid telemarketers,” and hang up.

  Alice was ready.

  Time to make the thermite.

  The pointer on the old-fashioned balance scale wavered with each added spoonful of iron oxide to the reddish mound. Mitch held his breath as the pointer settled on zero. One hundred grams. Perfect. He lifted the sample pan from the scale. With a smooth motion, he shook the powder into a glass jar. Using a fine-bristled brush, he swept any remaining particles from the pan to the floor to avoid contaminating the batch. The pan went back onto the scale, and Mitch reset the balance to a mass of thirty-seven grams.

  Mitch worked with greater care with the finely powdered aluminum. If the particles became airborne in the garage’s atmosphere and there was a spark, the metal had a fair chance of igniting. Using a wooden spatula to minimize the risk of setting off an unplanned and unpleasant reaction, he deftly piled up the flat gray reactive metal. The scale teetered until he had the correct amount on the pan. This was added to the jar.

  Tipped to a forty-five-degree angle, the powders lay in the jar like a sedimentary rock, or a crude sand glass decoration. Mitch turned the jar around its axis, the metals mixing in the bottom as they flowed over each other. When the mixture was thoroughly combined, he poured out the cementlike result into a glass custard bowl. He pulled out some homemade play dough that he’d made earlier and tested it for set. It was pliable and firm. He nodded. He measured out thirty-four grams. Into the bowl went the binder.

  Latex gloves stretched onto his hands and snapped at the wrist. Mitch kneaded the components of the thermite into his dough until he achieved a uniform texture and appearance. Then, he picked it up and rolled it until it resembled a large meatball. He wrapped it in plastic wrap and put it into the Camaro.

  The whole thing weighed about six ounces and would burn through a half an inch of solid aluminum plate in seconds. He’d place it in Seward Park tomorrow, if Hunter came through with the initiator by then.

  He could have used a standard magnesium fuse, but the burn time for the strip of flammable metal to start the oxidation reaction of the thermite was slow.

  He put the robot into the trunk and slammed it with finality.

  Everything was ready for a bigger, quicker bang.

  Mitch took a last look around. He still had extra materials for more thermite. He stored them at the back of a base cabinet where no one was likely to look. He wiped some sweat off his brow and clicked the light off. He entered the house to meet “jolly” Uncle Henry.

  Lassiter wasn’t the only one who could use minions and the promise of violence. Mitch would be ready for him this time.

  Chapter 46

  Kenzie inspected the dial. Minute lines with numbers marked by the tens. She couldn’t even figure out the odds of hitting the combo by accident—she didn’t know how many numbers were needed, or which way to turn the dial.

  It was hopeless.

  On a lark, she tried to “see” inside the lock. With a lot of effort, she built a feel for the mechanism. Moving it, on the other hand, proved impossible. She growled with frustration. Briefly, she considered using brute force to break the safe, but the repercussions might wreck the rest of the room. Maybe even the house.

  Sorry, Mother, it got away from me. She giggled. A bit. She giggled again.

  Lips still twitchy, she looked at the gray face. She spun the dial with a quick twist of her wrist. Smoothly, it whirled clockwise with the faintest of clicks and glided to a stop. The effect was mesmerizing: blurring, slowing, settling to a fixed number. She spun it again. It stopped at thirty-two. Two to the fifth power. Whir, blur, sixteen. Two to the fourth power. Intrigued, she gave the dial another ride, this time counterclockwise. Thirteen. The unlucky prime. One more time, to get rid of the bad-luck thirteen. Twenty-nine, prime.

  Quit wasting time, she thought.

  Where would her moth
er write down a combination?

  Would she be that dumb?

  The second question made her waver. As chilly as they were to each other, her mother exhibited both extraordinary intelligence and drive. To be a CEO in a hyper-competitive industry like tech required more than a pleasant smile and a short skirt. Her mother had made a name for herself by being right more often than her competitors, smart and competent men mostly. She also waged business as war, ruthless in executing innovations.

  Still, inside the safe confines of the house, her mother might. Unless it was easily memorized. Like a birthday? She tried her mother’s birthday, followed by her father’s, and her own. None of them.

  Anniversary?

  Nope.

  She couldn’t think of any more numbers that might be important.

  She snorted.

  It wouldn’t be that easy. The safe combination might be preset by the manufacturer and bear no relation to her mother. Seizing on that hope, Kenzie quickly tapped the name of the company into her phone. The web page came up, and she selected the product support tab. The corner of her mouth puckered in as the very first piece of advice she saw suggested changing the combination when the safe was set up.

  She glanced at the time. Maybe another thirty minutes until someone came home. She couldn’t plan for more than that.

  Kenzie meandered out of the closet and gazed around the bedroom, feeling overwhelmed. She tried to put herself in her mother’s position. Where would she hide a combo? Her eyes strayed to the bedside table. Someplace close. The pad of paper, two dates written on it. Hope blossomed with a smile. Her mother had written it down. She pulled the drawer open. The pad was on top. The months were written out in full, which wouldn’t work. She memorized the dates, converting the months to numbers. She discarded the years—both were for the current year. That left her four numbers: 4, 18, 9, 30. Assuming that none of the numbers repeated, that left her with twenty-four possible permutations.