by Lucas Flint
Rubberman shrugged. “Not all of us inherited our businesses from our already successful fathers, Nathan.”
Prime Man’s friendly smile suddenly turned into a hostile frown. “Well, we all got our start differently, didn’t we, Dennis? Anyway, I need to leave or else I’ll miss my meeting with the mayor and the police chief. If you need to contact me, just call my secretary.”
With that, Prime Man turned and left the room. He practically slammed the door behind himself on his way out, slammed it shut so hard that the door shook. It stayed in its frame, however, although I was amazed that he was strong enough to make such a heavy door shake.
I looked at Rubberman. “Why did he get so hostile all of a sudden? I don’t think you said anything wrong.”
Rubberman rubbed his forehead, still looking at the door as if Prime Man hadn’t left the room. “Maybe not technically, but Nathan’s always been insecure about the fact that he inherited the business from his father.”
“He did?” I said. “I’ve heard of superheroes inheriting their business from their parents, but I didn’t realize that Prime Man was one of them.”
“Oh, he is,” said Rubberman. “The Prime Man business was one of the first superhero businesses founded fifty years ago when the government first legalized superheroes. Prime Man the First is Nathan’s grandfather, who also sometimes teamed up with Nightbolt. It was Prime Man the Second, however, who really expanded the Prime Man business into the huge corporation it is today.”
“So this current Prime Man is really Prime Man the Third?” I said.
Rubberman nodded again. “Yes. That doesn’t make Nathan’s own accomplishments any less impressive, but he doesn’t like to be reminded that he’s the third person in his family to have had the Prime Man identity.”
“You talk about him like he’s a friend.”
Rubberman shrugged. “Not a friend so much as an acquaintance I’ve come to know over the years. He wants me to join Heroes United, which, as you know, I have no interest in being a part of. I like my independence.”
“Why does he want you to join Heroes United?”
“Because my business is booming,” said Rubberman. “You may not realize it, but my revenue, profits, and fame have been going up every year since I’ve been in the biz. It’s the same reason Sasha wants to buy my business from me; in a word, money.”
I frowned. “So Prime Man is just another profit-obsessed Cape, huh?”
“He’s a much better man than he seems,” said Rubberman. “While Barriers was a scumbag through and through, Nathan does at least try to be a hero and deal honorably in his business dealings. Still, you’re not too far off the mark in your understanding of him.”
I looked at the door again. “Should I be wary of him or—?”
“No,” said Rubberman, shaking his head. “Nathan isn’t like Sasha. If he wants to make a deal with me, he’ll come to me directly and won’t even think about trying to trick you. Like I said, he generally tries to be honest in his business dealings, which is more than I can say for Sasha, at least.”
Rubberman suddenly stood up and stretched his arms. “Well, I guess I must get going. Myster and I need to discuss Big Boy some more and how we’re going to deal with it. I’ll also call your parents to let them know you’re okay.”
I nodded. “Okay, boss. Tell them I don’t know when the hospital will release me, though it will probably be soon.”
“Sure thing,” said Rubberman. He turned to leave, but then suddenly turned around to look at me again, like he had just remembered something. “Oh, I almost forgot. Once you’re released from the hospital, come by the Elastic Cave as soon as you can.”
I raised an eyebrow in confusion. “Why? I thought you said you didn’t want me to do any work until my shoulder got better.”
“I’m not going to make you do any work,” Rubberman insisted. “I have a surprise for you, one I think you’ll enjoy a lot. I won’t say more than that, however, because I don’t want to ruin it for you.”
Rubberman sounded genuinely excited about this surprise, which made me wonder what it was, though knowing how good Rubberman was at keeping secrets, I didn’t press him on the issue.
Instead, I said, “All right, boss. Once they let me out of the hospital, I’ll come by to see what you’ve got.”
“Good to know,” said Rubberman. “Anyway, I’ve got to go. See you later.”
Rubberman left the room. When he closed the door behind himself, I sank down further against my pillows and stared up at the ceiling. I intended to get some sleep, because I was still pretty exhausted. It wasn’t like I had anything better to do, after all.
Just as I closed my eyes, however, my phone—which was on a table next to my bed—suddenly started ringing. Thinking it must be my parents, I grabbed the phone and looked at the screen, but to my confusion, the number was not Mom or Dad’s cell number, but rather a number I had never seen before. I was tempted to reject the call and go to sleep, but I was curious about who might be trying to get a hold of me while I was in the hospital like this. It never hurt to answer the phone, after all.
Tapping the accept button, I put the phone against my ear and said, “Hi, who is this?”
“Alex Fry,” said a deep male voice with a Japanese accent that was far too familiar. “I am pleased that you answered the phone. I thought the sedatives the doctor gave you for your injury might have knocked you out already, but it appears that I picked the right time to call you.”
I froze. That voice … it couldn’t be. He didn’t know my real identity. “Uh, I think you got the wrong number, dude. Maybe you were calling a different Alex Fry.”
“Don’t play dumb with me, Beams,” said the voice. “My boss and I keep close tabs on all patients admitted to Golden City General. We know that you are in the hospital due to a shoulder injury you received while fighting the Vigilante Legion earlier today. You cannot deceive us.”
Panic was beginning to rise in my chest. I looked around my room, but did not see anyone in here with me. “Where are you? Are you in the hospital or—”
“Where I am is irrelevant,” said Takeshi, Sasha Munroe’s bodyguard, whose voice I could hear over the phone. “What matters is that my employer asked me to deliver a message to you.”
“Me?” I said. “But I’m not Rubberman. If this is a business offer your boss wants to make—”
“My employer asked me to deliver this message specifically to you,” Takeshi interrupted without apology. “And it isn’t a business offer … well, not a typical business offer, at any rate. You must not tell Rubberman about this.”
I frowned. “Why did Sasha want you to deliver a message to me, specifically? And why shouldn’t I tell Rubberman about this? And how the hell did you get a hold of my phone number anyway?”
“I cannot answer all of your questions, save for the second one,” said Takeshi. “If you tell Rubberman about this call, we’ll reveal your secret identity to the world and you will lose your sidekick license.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“We would. And we would do it in such a way that you would never be able to prove that we did it. We have some very skilled hackers at Munroe Acquisitions who know how to cover their digital tracks, so to speak.”
“You’re bluffing.”
“I am many things, Beams, but a liar is not one of them. But if you don’t care about losing your license, I shall inform Miss Munroe that she can tell our hackers to put your information on the Internet, which will count as revealing your identity to the public.”
Takeshi was lying. He had to be lying. But I knew he wasn’t, because if they didn’t have proof of my identity, they wouldn’t have been able to look up my phone number and call me like this. Takeshi may or may not have been a liar, but in this instance, he was definitely telling the truth.
“Fine,” I said. “I won’t tell Rubberman about this.”
“A wise choice, young man,” said Takeshi. “Much wiser than most kids your
age.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” I said. “Just tell me what Sasha’s message is.”
“She wishes to speak with you in person,” said Takeshi. “Tomorrow at noon, you must appear at the Munroe Acquisitions headquarters building, where you will speak with Miss Munroe in her office.”
“About what?”
“About whatever Miss Munroe wishes to speak with you about. I am merely her secretary. She tells me all that I need to know, and no more.”
I could tell that Takeshi knew more than he let on, but he didn’t seem to want to talk about it over the phone. Probably, he didn’t want anyone eavesdropping on our call to know what Sasha wanted to talk about.
“I don’t know,” I said. “The doctor said I might need to stay in the hospital for a few more days—”
“That can be changed,” said Takeshi. “Miss Munroe is on good terms with the hospital’s director. Convincing them to let you out early will not be difficult.”
I bit my lower lip, but then nodded. “Okay. I’ll be there, then.”
“Excellent,” said Takeshi. “I shall send one of the company’s limousines to pick you up at eleven thirty. Make sure you are in the hospital lobby before it arrives. It will save us a lot of time.”
With that, Takeshi ended the call. I lowered my phone down, staring at the apps on its home screen, though I wasn’t really looking at it. I was thinking instead about my call with Takeshi and what awaited me tomorrow.
I didn’t know what Sasha wanted to talk with me about, but knowing about her business practices, I doubted it was just simple business.
CHAPTER FOUR
The next day, I was walking through the hallways of the Munroe Acquisitions headquarters in downtown Golden City. I was following Takeshi, who was dressed in a professional suit with a blue tie today rather than his usual all-black ninja garb. He didn’t look any less intimidating out of his ninja clothes than in them; if anything, his suit made him look even more intimidating, because I knew he could still take me down in a fight if he wanted.
As for me, I was wearing my Beams costume. Takeshi and Sasha may have known my secret identity, but that didn’t mean that the rest of the company did. Besides, an ordinary high school student having a meeting with the CEO of the company would have drawn attention; on the other hand, the sidekick of a local superhero coming to have a meeting with the company’s CEO would just be another day in the office. Oddly, we didn’t run into very many employees on our way up to Sasha’s office, although security cameras attached to the ceiling followed our every move. I wondered if Sasha was watching us from behind any of the cameras.
Earlier that day, I had been released from the hospital much earlier than my doctor originally thought. He claimed that my shoulder injury was actually not as bad as he thought and that I could let it finish recovering at home if I wanted, rather than in the hospital. He made it seem like some kind of medical miracle, but remembering what Takeshi said about Sasha being friends with the hospital director, I figured Takeshi had pulled a few strings for me. At the very least, my shoulder, though hurting far less than it used to, was still bandaged up and would likely remain that way for a while. Perhaps I didn’t need to worry; after all, I didn’t expect to get into any fights while visiting Sasha today.
As I had promised to Takeshi, I had not told Rubberman—or, indeed, anyone else—about where I was going. Rubberman didn’t even visit me in the morning; he must have been busy, perhaps working with Myster and the other members of Heroes United to plan out an attack strategy on the Legion’s factory headquarters. Regardless, I was glad I hadn’t seen him, because I didn’t want to lie to his face about where I was going or what I was doing.
Takeshi, as usual, didn’t say much when I arrived in the limo in front of the company headquarters. He merely led me into the elevator, which went to the top floor where Sasha’s office was, and we were now walking down the hallway to it. This was the first time I’d been up on the top floor of the Munroe Acquisitions headquarters building, so I looked around with interest at the red tiles, the white walls, and the pictures of the various superhero brands which Munroe Acquisitions owned, like the Conjurer, Shining Star, and Mr. Bicep.
“How many superhero brands does Munroe Acquisitions own?” I asked, looking up at Takeshi as we walked. “If you can tell me, that is.”
“One thousand nine-hundred and two,” Takeshi said without missing a beat. “And we’re still acquiring more every day.”
“Wow,” I said, genuinely impressed. “That’s way more than I thought you guys had.”
Takeshi did not look at me as we walked. “Miss Munroe’s father, who founded the company, acquired the majority of them when he was still in charge of the company. Miss Munroe herself has only acquired a few hundred brands and businesses since taking over after her father’s retirement.”
The way he said the word ‘retirement’ made me wonder if Charles Munroe’s retirement hadn’t been entirely voluntary on his part. Knowing Sasha’s ruthless nature, that seemed likely to me.
But I said nothing else, because I was too busy preparing myself mentally for my meeting with Sasha. Takeshi still hadn’t told me what she wanted to talk with me about and he insisted that he didn’t know what ‘Miss Munroe,’ as he called her, was going to discuss with me. He was very good at acting the part of the servant who merely followed orders and didn’t know anything important. If I hadn’t already had several encounters with him before in which he displayed high intelligence, I might have bought the act.
As it was, I was sure that Takeshi was under orders from Sasha not to tell me the subject of the meeting. Though I didn’t know for sure what we were going to talk about, I guessed it was not something that would benefit me or Rubberman; if it was, she wouldn’t have had to threaten to make me lose my job to get me to talk to her. I tried to prepare myself mentally for my meeting with her, but that was easier said than done, because as long as I didn’t know what we were going to talk about, I couldn’t adequately prepare for whatever tricks Sasha might try to use on me.
Finally, we stopped in front of a set of polished oak double doors with the words SASHA MUNROE, MUNROE ACQUISITIONS, INC. CEO written on them in golden lettering. Takeshi pushed one of the doors open and entered. He held the door open for me to follow, but I hesitated. For a brief moment, I considered just turning around and running away; running away, and never looking back.
But then the moment of hesitation passed and I entered the office. As Takeshi closed the door behind me, I looked around the office to get my bearings.
Sasha’s office was huge, probably twice as big as my bedroom in my home. It was wide-open and quite modern, with several pieces of modern art (that looked like a bunch of childish doodles to me) lining the walls. A couch, recliner, and coffee table stood around an electric fireplace, which was currently burning brightly, although it did not look entirely inviting despite that. There were no bookshelves at all; heck, there were no shelves, period, which made the office feel pretty bare in comparison to Rubberman’s office.
Toward the back of the office stood Sasha’s desk. Like the rest of the furniture, it was sleek and modern, a shiny black surface that reflected the fluorescent lights on the ceiling. A single open laptop, with a wireless keyboard, stood on the desk, and next to the laptop stood a couple of framed pictures, though they were aimed toward the person sitting behind the desk so I couldn’t see what they showed.
And the person sitting behind the desk, of course, was none other than Sasha Munroe herself. She was a middle-aged black woman, short and plump, with a cheery, round face that reminded me of my first grade English teacher. She wore a blue pantsuit and had her hair done in a bun, but I knew better than to let my guard down around her. Though she may have looked like an ordinary businesswoman, I knew from experience that she was much more ruthless than most, and not in the business kind of ruthless, either.
Sasha was looking at something on her laptop when we entered, but then she looked u
p as we started walking toward her. She smiled, which looked almost genuine, but again, I knew better than to trust it. Sasha could be very friendly when she wanted to be, but she was only friendly to you insofar as you were useful to her. That she was already pretending to be friendly, even before she said a word, told me that she thought I might be useful to her, which wasn’t exactly a reassuring thought.
“Why, hello there, young Beams,” said Sasha as I sat down in the chair on the opposite side of the desk; Takeshi silently took his place by Sasha’s side. “It simply wonderful to see you again. I heard all about that awful shoulder injury you got while fighting those terrible vigilantes. How does your shoulder feel?”
“Better,” I said in a polite voice. I rotated my shoulder. “As long as I don’t get into any fights, it should heal up just fine, according to the doctor.”
Sasha’s fake smile grew broader. “How fabulous. But I must admit, I am quite surprised at how quickly you are recovering. I suppose being a growing teenage boy does have its advantages, doesn’t it?”
“I suppose so,” I said.
Sasha must have sensed my lack of enthusiasm at being here, because her smile grew slightly smaller, though it was still too big for my tastes. “Well, in any case, it’s good to know that you will be making a full recovery. I’d hate to tell my nephew Michael that you had to quit your job because of an injury you received. Michael really looks up to you, you know, like most boys his age do. Here’s a picture of him.”
Sasha turned one of the pictures on her desk toward me. It showed a small black boy, probably about five or six, smiling up at the camera while he wore a party hat, with a large slice of chocolate cake on the plate in front of him.
“This is a picture of his fifth birthday party last November,” said Sasha. “When I asked him what his birthday wish was, he said that he wanted to be a superhero like you. Isn’t that precious?”