by Lucas Flint
All hopes of Mom being the reasonable one faded as soon as she spotted ZZZ’s discarded gun on the deck. She jumped away from the fallen gun like it was a snake getting ready to bite her, though I didn’t understand why, given how no one was holding the gun and it was actually aimed away from her toward the garden.
“Mom, are you okay?” I asked, taking a step toward the deck with concern.
“Where did this gun come from?” asked Mom, her eyes never leaving the gun, like she thought it was going to jump at her if she took her eyes off it for even a second. “Alex, did you bring this back home with you and not tell us?”
“No, Mom, that’s not my gun,” I said. “It belonged to the assassin who tried to kill me just a few minutes ago.”
I probably shouldn’t have said that, because both Mom and Dad stared at me with sheer horror, as if I had just told them that there was a serial killer somewhere in the neighborhood (which wasn’t actually that far from the truth, now that I thought about it).
“An assassin?” Dad repeated. “You mean someone was literally hired to try to kill you? In my backyard and on my deck?”
“He’s gone now, though,” I said. “And since that was his gun, he is unarmed, which means he’s probably not as dangerous as before.”
“Where is he now?” said Mom, looking around wildly. “Is that assassin the same one as that ZZZ guy you were telling me about?”
“Z who now?” said Dad, looking at Mom in confusion.
“An assassin in the city,” Mom explained. “Alex told me that there’s an assassin after his boss’s life.”
Mom probably shouldn’t have told Dad that, because he looked like he was literally about to have a heart attack now. He had half-risen from his seat when he heard the bit about an assassin, but when Mom said that, Dad just fell back into it and I was afraid that I would need to call 911 in case he ended up having a heart attack or something on the spot.
“An assassin,” Dad repeated, sounding dazed. “Tried to kill my son. On my own property. Damaged my beautiful deck.”
“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” I said. “On the bright side, he didn’t actually shoot me, though he did get away.”
Dad’s eyes bugged out. “You mean he’s still out there? And he might come back to finish the job?”
“I didn’t say that,” I said, scratching the back of my head. “I mean, technically, sure, he’s probably going to come back and try to kill me, because he seemed to be trying to kill me, but—”
“Son,” said Dad, his hands over his eyes. “You should really stop talking. You’re not making this situation any better. At all.”
Taking that bit of fatherly wisdom seriously, I closed my mouth. I had no idea what Mom and Dad were going to do next, but I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be very good.
After a few seconds of deep breathing, Dad lowered his hands from his eyes and looked at me. “Alex, let’s all go inside and you can tell us about what happened out here.”
“Um, okay,” I said. I didn’t like the tone of Dad’s voice; I mean, I knew that he was shaken, but he sounded a little disappointed as well.
Dad rose from the lawn chair and made his way back into the house, though Mom helped him like he was suffering from a debilitating disease. I climbed back onto the deck and went inside with them. I didn’t touch ZZZ’s gun, mostly because I didn’t feel comfortable handling guns, but also because there was a chance we might call the police and I didn’t want to mess with any potential evidence.
But I did lock the door on the way in. It seemed unlikely that ZZZ would return so soon after his first attempt, but I didn’t want to take any chances.
CHAPTER SIX
Dad called the police after I explained to him who ZZZ was. A few officers came by our house soon afterward, took a look around, asked a few questions, and took ZZZ’s gun with them for evidence. It was when one of the officers picked up the discarded gun and put it inside a plastic evidence bag that I noticed that the initials ZZZ were engraved in the gun’s handle, which seemed like a dumb thing to me, because that made it easier to identify as ZZZ’s weapon. Then again, ZZZ was such an experienced assassin that I doubted he was worried about the local police force capturing him.
Additionally, I called Rubberman and told him about ZZZ’s attack. Rubberman listened very intently and even offered to come over to scout the neighborhood for ZZZ’s whereabouts, but I told Rubberman that me and my family would be fine and that his arrival would just make both Mom and Dad even more anxious than they already were. Besides, I didn’t want Rubberman to be put in danger; I was afraid that he might get attacked by ZZZ and felt that he was safer in the Elastic Cave than at my house.
Rubberman said that he would inform Myster of my encounter with ZZZ, which I expected, but I did not expect Rubberman to offer me the day off tomorrow, which was Monday, because he thought I might want to stay home with my parents to keep them safe from ZZZ. But I told Rubberman that I wanted to come into work after school as usual anyway, because if ZZZ was after me, I figured my parents would be safer if I was actually out of the house. Plus, I wanted to get some more training in, because I felt like I didn’t handle my fight with ZZZ as well as I could have and I wanted to make sure I could defend myself better if he attacked me again.
Speaking of school, I spent the night worrying that ZZZ might attack my school tomorrow while I was there. Such an idea would have seemed unlikely to me in the past, but if ZZZ somehow knew my real identity and where I lived, then it stood to reason that he probably knew where I went to school, too. I thought about taking the day off from school, but I reasoned that he would probably not risk attacking a school full of students so soon after his first failed attack. I figured he would need at least a few days for his hand to recover from the severe burn I inflicted on it, so I would most likely be safe at school. Of course, I thought the same thing when Fro-Zen attacked my school, so maybe my reasoning was not entirely valid.
Regardless, in the morning, I found myself standing at my locker in the hallways of Harold Golden High in between classes, putting my books from my geometry class away while getting out my English books. The hallway was packed full of students going to and from classes, talking and joking with each other, and the occasional faculty member who would toss a careful look around the crowd to make sure no one was doing anything against school rules. It seemed like an ordinary school day so far, but I was on edge, keeping my eyes and ears open for any sign of ZZZ.
Thus, when a pudgy hand suddenly landed on my shoulder out of the blue as I reached for my English books, I whirled around and, without even thinking about it, twisted the arm of the person who had touched me. I probably would have broken their arm, just the way that Rubberman taught me in training, before I got a good look at the person who touched me and saw that it was a short, pudgy kid with a familiar blue baseball cap on his head and wearing a shirt featuring the logo of the video game War Zero on the chest.
“Ow!” said the guy. “Alex, you’re breaking my arm. Feels like it’s about to snap right off.”
I immediately let go of my friend’s arm and smiled somewhat sheepishly. “Sorry, Frank. I didn’t realize it was you. I just reacted on instinct.”
Franklin Maddox—my best friend in Harold Golden High—rubbed his shoulder as he looked at me warily. “What did you think I was, Apparition or something? And when did your instincts get so good anyway?”
The honest answer was that I had honed my fighting instincts over the last month with Rubberman, whose training routine emphasized learning how to react quickly in a fight in order to gain the upper hand over an enemy, especially in a life or death situation.
But that would require revealing my secret identity to Frank, which was against the law, so I just shrugged and said, “I think it just naturally happens when you go to the gym. You get stronger and faster, so your reflexes get faster as well.”
“Yeah, I guess that makes sense,” said Frank. He glanced at his own large belly. �
�I could probably stand to go to the gym, honestly, but I’m afraid I might end up throwing out my back or something like that.”
I rolled my eyes. “Right. Anyway, how was your weekend?”
“Pretty good,” said Frank. He patted his chest. “I’ve got nearly all of the award metals in War Zero, including the DLC stuff. Also, I saw a trailer for the next War Zero game, War Zero: The Next Infinity, which looks like crap, but I’ll probably buy it anyway when it comes out because I don’t trust trailers.”
“Uh, interesting,” I said. I wasn’t as interested in games as Frank; even before I became a sidekick, I didn’t care much for them, but because Frank liked them so much, I was usually up to talking about them with him.
“Oh, and I almost forgot,” said Frank. He pulled out something from his backpack and showed it to me proudly. “I also designed badges for the Beams Fan Club, which I’m going to hand out to the other members after school today. See?”
I looked more closely at the badge Frank held. It was shaped kind of like a police badge, except instead of a police shield, it had my helmet on it. It was a stylized version of my Beams helmet, cartoony and exaggerated and honestly not very good. Underneath the cartoon of my helmet, the words ‘BEAMS FAN CLUB OF HAROLD GOLDEN HIGH’ stood out in bright golden lettering.
“Isn’t it cool?” said Frank. “It was a little hard to get the visor right, but I think I managed to get Beams’ likeness down pretty well. At least, everyone I’ve showed this to has agreed that it looks like him.”
“Yeah, it does look like him,” I said, standing upright again. “How many people are in the club now?”
“Ten,” said Frank. “And we’re still growing. Seems like everyone loves Beams; I think it’s because no one knows who he is, but everyone suspects he’s a student here at the school.”
“Really?” I said. “Why would you think that?”
“Because he has to live somewhere in Golden City if he’s working for Rubberman,” said Frank. “Duh.” He leaned forward suddenly and whispered, “But just to be clear, I’m not Beams. I mean, I know you probably don’t think so, but I just wanted to make it clear just to be safe.”
“Uh, okay,” I said as Frank pulled back. “I wouldn’t think you were Beams, because you and him have very different body types.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” said Frank. “I’m pretty short and pudgy, whereas Beams is built more like you. Actually, now that I think about it, your arms are about as thick as his.”
“Oh, really?” I said, trying to sound casual, but I was actually alarmed because Frank was getting dangerously close to the truth about my identity. “That’s, er, a really big coincidence.”
“Yeah, it is,” said Frank, nodding. “But you know, it doesn’t really matter, because I know you’re not Beams.”
“Really?” I said. “What makes you say that? Is it because I don’t have any powers?”
“Yeah, but that’s not the most important reason,” said Frank. “The most important reason is because you’re just not that heroic. Don’t take it personally or anything, but I just can’t imagine you going out and fighting supervillains like that Fro-Zen guy, for example. Not that I think you’re a coward or anything, but you just don’t strike me as the kind of guy fit for that type of work.”
I put on a smile, but it felt really fake and forced. “Well, thanks for the vote of confidence, Frank. Glad to know you have such a high opinion of me.”
I know I shouldn’t have been offended—after all, I didn’t want Frank or anyone else even suspecting I was a sidekick—but it was rather annoying to be dismissed as a candidate as Beams because I didn’t seem ‘heroic’ enough. I guess it was because I really wanted the credit for everything that Beams had done so far, but couldn’t openly accept any of it because that would make me lose my license. That was why I found all of the talk about Beams annoying; not because I hated hearing my other self praised, but because I was not able to accept any of it myself.
Frank must have noticed how I didn’t want to talk about this topic anymore, because he just scratched the back of his head and said, “Anyway, how did your date with Greta go? Did you finally get to go out with her or did you have to put it off again?”
“I finally got to go out with her,” I confirmed. I looked up and down the crowded hall and frowned. “But I haven’t seen her all day. Have you?”
“Nope,” said Frank, shaking his head. “I think she might be sick, ‘cause I overheard a couple of her friends talking about how she had to take a day off school.”
“She seemed perfectly healthy when I was with her on Sunday,” I said, folding my arms in front of my chest. “I hope she’s all right. We’ve got another date scheduled for next week and I’d hate to have to put it off because she’s sick.”
“Maybe you should drop by her house after school to see how she’s doing,” Frank suggested. “If she’s going on another date with you, doesn’t that indicate that she’s interested in you? She would probably be happy to see you, especially if you came with flowers or something like that.”
“You’re talking like you’ve ever had a girlfriend,” I pointed out. “How do you know that won’t just creep her out?”
“Hey, man, I’m just trying to help,” said Frank. “I know you’d do the same for me if I was dating a girl, wouldn’t you?”
“Yeah, but I wouldn’t give you cheesy advice straight out of a romantic comedy or something like that,” I said with a roll of my eyes. “I’ll just text her later and see what she says.”
“Okay,” said Frank. “But speaking of girls, did you see her?”
I blinked. “Who?”
Frank immediately pointed down the hall. “That girl over there. The new one.”
Frowning, I looked in the direction in which Frank indicated and started when I saw the girl to which he was referring. It was Charlotte Simpson, Myster’s daughter, standing at her locker with a textbook in hand, chatting with one of the school’s football players. She looked much the same as she did back on Sunday, when I met her, except now she was wearing a black T-shirt and jeans that looked really expensive. Her hair was almost shiny in its coloration, actually reflecting the light from the ceiling. Most of the guys who passed her by kept not-so-subtly glancing at her, but she was too busy talking with the quarterback to pay attention to them.
“Do you know who that is?” asked Frank in a low voice, practically a hiss. “That’s Charlotte Simpson, the daughter of the famous superhero Myster.”
“I knew,” I replied.
“You do?” said Frank. “Where did you see her?”
“Uh, on TV, when the news reported on that Lord Mechanika guy’s attack yesterday,” I said quickly. “He kidnapped her and nearly killed her before her dad saved her.”
“Oh, yeah, I remember that,” said Frank. “But can you believe it? The daughter of a famous superhero is attending our school and taking the same classes as us. I don’t even know what Myster is doing here in Golden City, but rumor has it that he’s searching for a supervillain.”
“Wait, you know who Myster is?” I said.
“Of course I do,” said Frank. “He’s one of my favorite superheroes, even though he is normally stationed in North Wood. I never thought he’d come here or that he would send his daughter to our school, though. That’s amazing.”
“So Charlotte is actually a student here now?” I said, glancing at Charlotte again. “For how long?”
“Don’t know,” said Frank, rubbing his hands together anxiously. “But I’ve been screwing up the courage to ask her out. Not only is she the daughter of one of my favorite superheroes, but she’s also really pretty. I bet she’s nice, too, because Myster is one of the nicest superheroes around.”
I frowned. I considered telling Frank about Charlotte’s bratty behavior, but that that would require revealing my identity to him, too, so instead I said, “I wouldn’t bother if I were you, Frank. Rumor has it that Charlotte has eyes only for Beams.”
> Frank’s shoulders slumped. “Oh. Well, I guess that makes sense. Seems like every girl in the school only wants to talk about Beams. Not that I blame them, but it makes it kind of hard for guys like us to compete, you know? Not everyone is a famous sidekick who defeated one of the worst villains in recent memory, after all.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I know, but speaking of sidekicks, if Myster’s daughter is here, then does that mean that his sidekick, Cyberkid, is also here?” I looked around. “I don’t see him.”
“Well, that’s obvious,” said Frank. “Assuming Cyberkid is here, he’s probably keeping his identity a secret so he doesn’t lose his license.” Suddenly, Frank put both of his hands on his head. “Holy crap. If Cyberkid is here, then that means there are two sidekicks attending Harold Golden High. Most schools don’t even have one sidekick. This is crazy and awesome at the same time.” He looked around suddenly. “Do you think we might be able to find out who Cyberkid is if we tried?”
“Isn’t outing a sidekick against the law, though?” I said. “We could get in trouble if we did that.”
“Good point,” said Frank with a sigh. “Well, it’s still cool to think about anyway. And, in a way, I feel kind of safe. I mean, if our school is ever attacked again, we’ll have at least two competent sidekicks to protect us. That’s not as good as having actual superheroes, of course, but it’s still better than what most schools have.” He hiked up his backpack on his shoulders. “Well, I gotta get to class, so see you later. Want to come to my house after school and play War Zero?”
I shook my head as I closed my locker door. “Sorry, but I’ve got stuff to do. Like go to the gym and stuff like that.”
“Man, you’re always busy after school,” said Frank. “Not that I’m complaining, but it just doesn’t seem like we hang out as much as we used to, you know?”