Not Your Sidekick

by C. B. Lee

  “Yes, I see, but it doesn’t mean Captain Orion is at the heart of it,” Jess says. She takes a deep breath. She doesn’t have the energy to figure it out; can’t she just wallow in her misery? “I know that the Mischiefs were suspicious but like, isn’t that just like a hero-villain thing?”

  M’s visor panel blinks red, once, and then it’s completely dark. “A hero-villain thing,” she says flatly. “I thought you—Jess, I thought you were different.”

  M turns around and shuts the door. It clicks with a solemn finality just as Jess says, “M—”

  The apology dies on her lips as the door closes.

  Great. Her friend M is upset, and Abby doesn’t want to go on a date with her.

  Jess gets back to work.

  Jess is at her wit’s end. She tries to focus on schoolwork, but didn’t realize how intrinsic Abby was to her day-to-day school life until she suddenly isn’t there. Every moment stands out to Jess, like the vivid colors of a holo projection, constantly dancing in front of her. Abby is absent from the lunch table. She still sits with Jess during English, but there’s barely a nod of acknowledgment—no more glances during class or shared smiles over Rhinehart’s jokes. Abby doesn’t ask Jess if she wants to work on their project as they normally do on Thursdays. She isn’t waiting outside Jess’ sixth period when the day ends. Jess finds herself standing in the hallway, waits until she realized Abby isn’t coming, and then shakes herself and rushes to catch the bus home.

  She did more research on the missing villains that M brought up; her doubt grows as she finds even more. There aren’t any specifics on any of the incidents, just a vagueness that Jess finds unsettling. Tree Frog, the colorful climbing villain whose signature move is to scale the redwoods in the Northern California region and hang ludicrous signs, hasn’t put up a new sign in over seven months. It is probably coincidence, right? Maybe the inactive ones aren’t missing; they’re in the Meta-Human Corrections center. But there aren’t been any reports of Tree Frog being captured, or even fighting with the local Redwood City hero, Arête.

  Jess finishes her homework and finds a message from her dad that her parents are downtown for a meeting with the Associated League and to take care of dinner for her and Brendan.

  Brendan is in the middle of an experiment, but gladly shouts out his expensive and ridiculous requests for food through the door. Jess refuses to drive all the way to Las Vegas to pick him up a steak, and they argue until compromising on an order of jambalaya from the Broussard restaurant.

  It’s quiet today, so Jess just slides into an empty booth and waits for Bells. “Just two orders of jambalaya to go,” she says, slumping in the seat

  Bells sits next to her. “Thought you hung out with your girl on Thursdays.”

  “Not today,” Jess says, laying her head on the table.

  Bells doesn’t push, just throws an arm around her shoulders. After a moment, he blurts, “Do you want some cheesecake?”

  “Dessert before dinner.” Jess laughs. It’s a small, mirthless sound. “Sure.”

  Bells comes back with a slice and two spoons, and they eat silently until Bells starts talking aimlessly about the gossip surrounding Vindicated 7. It’s easy to relax with the sweet dessert and his comforting voice, and soon enough Jess sighs and places her spoon on the empty plate. “I, ah, I asked Abby out on a date yesterday.”

  Bells nods, his spoon in his mouth. “Good job. Knew you could do it.”

  “She said yes… but then she freaked out once we started making plans.” Jess buries her face in her hands.

  Bells licks his spoon. “Well, we’re out of cheesecake, but I’m sure I could find you some pie.”

  “Thanks, Bells.”

  The hug is a lifeline, and Jess clings to it, breathing in the spicy scent of Bells’ cologne.

  “That’s not the only thing bothering me,” she says when they let go. “I don’t even know how to say it. I, um, I signed a non-disclosure agreement.”

  “For work?”

  “Yeah. My coworker asked for help on this project, and I couldn’t… I mean, it’s technically stealing?”

  “Oh. Like corporate espionage?” Bells quirks his eyebrows. “I mean, picking the teenage intern to do it is genius, by the way. No one would think to look at the kid, right? Is it Hale Tech? Oh, right, you can’t tell me. Blink once if you’re sneaking into Hale Tech, blink twice if you’re going for—”

  Jess huffs and bumps Bells in the shoulder.

  “Well, sometimes the wrong action for the right reason can be right,” Bells says. His eyes are glassy and it seems as if he’s quoting someone.

  “What’s that from? Some vintage superhero movie we haven’t watched yet? Bells, you holding out on me? You’ve got your own contraband media?”

  “Shut up, you know I wouldn’t watch those without you guys.” Bells scrunches his face. “Well, is stealing the only way to get the thing? I mean, that’s kind of a lot to ask. You’ve only been there, what, a few months?”

  “Not really stealing a thing,” Jess says. She’s thought about it for a while. “More like getting information I wouldn’t normally have access to. But getting that information could help people.”

  “Hmm. You know that the NAC sees everything, right? On our DED’s, all our messages and what we search and all that. All that information is out there for the government to look at any time, as well as for anyone clever enough to try and get it. What’s the difference between you reading something you’re not supposed to and the NAC looking at all the weird cat holos I send you?” Bells gives her a knowing look. “Look, is it like a personal secret?”

  “No. I think it’s company stuff.”

  “So, there’s a big difference; it’s not like if I told you—”

  “Told me what?” Jess turns to eye Bells.

  He coughs, wheezes, and practically falls out of the booth. “Nothing. I don’t know anything. I, uh, I see your food is ready.”

  Jess sits at the table, dumbfounded. When Bells’ older brother brings her the jambalaya, he just shrugs and says Bells had to go. School stuff, something like that.

  Everyone is acting strange. Of course. It’s that kind of week.

  Jess has been looking forward to this event for a month, and on the day, she can barely muster excitement. She’d gotten the two tickets a while ago in the hope that she could work up the courage to ask Abby out. Well, she did, and that worked out so well.

  It’s last minute, so Bells wasn’t able to get out of his Friday shift, and Emma’s cousins are in town again so she can’t make it either. So when the bell rings after her last class, she walks down the block to wait for the downtown city bus by herself.

  Jess makes it to the Andover Museum of Modern Art with a few minutes to spare. There’s a huge poster swathing the wall that shows Captain Orion in flight with a span of glimmering stars behind her and the constellation she’s named for.

  Jess waits, watching the security guard check the people ahead of her in line. She pulls at her shirt collar. The man ahead of her has to give up his water bottle—no foreign liquids in the museum, apparently. Finally it’s Jess’ turn. The guard at the museum simply scans her DED and waves her on in.

  Jess joins the group in the Lieutenant Orion exhibit, featuring the new display of Captain Orion’s latest adventures in New Bright City. A whole section of the exhibit is dedicated to Captain Orion, with new art that the museum is auctioning off today.

  Elizabeth and Denise are here, too. Jess nods at them, earning a nod back from Denise. She and Elizabeth whisper to each other and giggle. Another time, Jess might have tried hard to ignore them and then been laughed at, but today she just doesn’t care.

  She picks a seat in the back of the exhibit hall. Jess’ hands find her way to her pocket and toy with a frayed bit of thread. She gulps when she counts four armed security guards. Is M still goin
g through with her plan? How would she get access to Orion’s personal DED? Orion doesn’t wear it often; it clashes with her outfit. The device is probably on a charging dock somewhere.

  Jess shakes off all ideas about M and her plans and tries to focus on having fun. She’s about to see her hero in person for the first time!

  A curtain behind the stage suggests Captain Orion will appear from behind it, but she flies in through an open window with her cape flapping behind her. After landing, she stands tall as the audience erupts in applause.

  Captain Orion dominates the stage, in full regalia: blue and silver body suit, shining blonde hair. Her blue eyes gleam at the audience. Unlike most superheroes, Orion doesn’t wear a mask. She was raised in the public eye and long since stopped using her name, preferring to be called only by her superhero title.

  She looks stunning, and a bit smaller in person. A month ago Jess would have been thrilled to be in the same room with Captain Orion, let alone have the chance to get an actual autograph, not a stamped one. Orion is amazing, and the years of loving her adventures and collecting her comic books yield a sense of awe at seeing her hero in person. She still likes the Captain, but she’s gone from full-blown obsession to just mild interest.

  Jess thinks about Gravitus and the countless other strange things she’s discovered: about the villains disappearing all over the country; about where Andover’s own two villains are. The Mischiefs aren’t on an extended vacation either; there is something else at work here.

  “Well, hello, hello, my nearest and dearest fans!” Captain Orion says, her voice bright and syrupy. She sounds exactly like she does on her commercials; every sweet inflection is the same. Even the little quirk in her smile that Jess used to swoon over looks as if Jess is watching a recorded holovid. Orion stands with her hands on her hips, poised for battle. Somewhere in the orchestra pit there must be a person with a fan because Orion’s hair flutters spectacularly, just like in her commercial for Orion ApprovedTM Volumizer.

  She waves, and the people in the audience cheer, scream, and shout praise. Everyone loves Orion. Tickets to any of her events are almost impossible to get. Jess has been on the waitlist for this event for months. She had to trade her limited first edition Captain Orion comic to one of the forum moderators to get tickets.

  Orion waves offstage, pointing at her microphone with a harried expression. A stagehand tries to raise it to her height and fails, staring at her in awe. The microphone falls, and he blushes and fixes it. Orion waves him off, and he bows awkwardly, apologizing profusely.

  “Thank you for coming here today. I’m going to read aloud from my latest book, The Life and Times of Captain Orion, which has a corresponding comic book, available today in the gift shop!”

  The audience cheers. Cameras flash, and Jess is struck by how posed it all seems to be. Live, Orion seems as though she’s acting out a script as she carefully turns left and right to face the audience.

  “Marry me, Captain!” a woman yells from the front row.

  “Captain, Captain, are we safe from Coldfront?” a man yells.

  Captain Orion clutches her hand to her chest with an affected sigh. “I can assure you that Coldfront is in a maximum security Meta-Humans Corrections center, secured by the special forces of the North American Collective. You and the general public are safe.” She ducks her head in a little bow.

  “Is he okay, though?” Denise asks, surprising Jess. “I mean, you, like, lightninged him in the chest.”

  Orion frowns; it’s the first expression that isn’t carefully composed. “Of course,” she says, a little too brightly.

  “What about Tree Frog?” Jess asks, not bothering to raise her hand.

  “Tree Frog is also in Corrections,” Orion says. She narrows her eyes at Jess and tsks in annoyance. “Now does anyone else have a question that could be answered on the League’s official holo, or can I get on with the program?”

  The audience laughs, and a few people turn around to titter at Jess.

  Jess might have been bothered by how rude Orion was, but she’s too focused on the fact that Orion said Tree Frog was in Corrections. There’s no record of Tree Frog ever being captured after a fight. The last time she was in the media she was atop one of her signs aloft in the trees laughing at Arête.

  Shock pours over Jess, and she hears M’s voice, in that sad tone, asking for help.

  “Now, are you ready?” Captain Orion smirks and tosses her hair.

  Orion only gets as far as “I was born in…” when the nearest window shatters with a small burst of energy. Jess recognizes electronic pulses from M’s mecha-suit.

  M flies into the exhibit hall and stands tall on the stage.

  Maybe it’s because Jess knows M now, but though she’s found the colors laughable on the Mischiefs, she finds the contrast between M’s darker colors and the overly saturated brights of Orion’s suit visually compelling.

  “You!” Captain Orion gasps. Her book clatters to the floor, and she adopts a fighting stance. “You escaped?! How!”

  M’s voice modulator drops to a low pitch that’s reminiscent of Master Mischief, and then M seizes a large canvas painting of Orion and flies out the window, cackling.

  A man in a suit rushes forward, whispers in Orion’s ear, and hands her a metal bottle. She takes a long drink, wipes her mouth, and then gets into a ready position. “You won’t get away with this!” she says, flipping her hair. Her teeth sparkle.

  Someone yells, “Go get him, Cap!”

  Orion flies out the window; her cape flaps heroically behind her.

  The audience whispers, and then everyone gets up to go look with their DED’s raised high to snap pictures. The guards stand their ground.

  Jess sneaks out the back. She can still help. Adrenaline rushing through her, Jess starts down the hallway. On impulse, she spins about and heads in the other direction. She rounds the corner and spots a MonRobot. It goes forward and then hovers, shakes and spins, heads in another direction, like… like whoever is directing it is distracted.

  “Hey! Hey!” Jess whispers, looking left and right. This area is devoid of security guards; most of them are at the exhibit hall protecting the art. She tries to be as quiet as she can, rushing over to the MonRobot. “Hey, are you here with M?”

  It cheeps at her, and lights up as it scans her face. “Jessica Tran, Experimental Divisions Intern—”

  “Yes, yes, come on, can you open up a comm link to M?” Jess grabs it and shakes it. Her fingers tremble as the MonRobot processes the request.

  A crackle of static bursts, and there’s a searing sound of energy crackling. “M! It’s Jess, let me know how I can help!” Jess hopes she can be heard over the firefight.

  “Jess?”

  Jess thinks her heart might explode; M’s voice is so full of hope.

  Another piercing noise; M must be dodging Orion’s lightning blasts. “Okay, I’m keeping Orion busy, but I don’t know where her DED is and I can’t direct Jills at the same time—”

  “Got it, got it. I’ll find it. Don’t worry,” Jess says.

  A security guard stands at the end of the hallway.

  “Jills will have a chip for Orion’s DED, just get the info and meet me back at the lab—”

  “Hey! No unauthorized personal assistant bots in the museum!” A guard shouts at them and walks forward.

  Jess picks up the MonRobot and runs. The oblong metal case bobs awkwardly in her hands, but she does her best. She ducks down another hallway and tries a door; it’s unlocked. She waits until she hears the guard rushing down the hall. Jills cheeps in her arms.

  “Hush,” Jess whispers.

  Jills. What a funny name for a MonRobot, kinda like—

  She doesn’t have time to finish the thought; she has to find Orion’s DED. The hallway is silent, and Jess ventures out. The staging area must be here somewher
e; there are a bunch of offices and labs for the museum staff.

  Jess puts down the MonRobot and Jills trails behind her in the air as she tries every door until she finds one filled with flowers and well wishes for Captain Orion.

  Orion doesn’t have many personal things, but there’s a little work area with some letters from the museum and a desktop projector with a DED charging in the dock.

  Jess exhales and Jills holds out a chip to Jess. She plugs the chip into Orion’s DED port. M said there was a program that would do everything automatically, and sure enough, a popup holo opens in the Mischief’s trademark purple and a progress bar starts to load.

  Jess watches the bar increase as she listens to the sounds of cheering and what sounds like energy blasts in the distance. Oh, she hopes M is okay. She sees the window blink “copy complete,” and she removes the chip, picks up Jills, and races out the door.

  When she returns to the exhibit hall, M and Captain Orion are flying about each other as M artfully dodges the lightning blasts from Orion.

  Jess sits at the end of the hall, watching with a few fan club members who aren’t taking pictures or hiding behind something. A few people are clapping, gasping in awe.

  M spots Jess and her face panel lights up with the pink lights Jess has come to associate with happiness. She nods at her and puts down the painting. Jess smiles and gives her a small wave.

  It’s kind of thrilling, being part of a heist.

  Jills is hovering at Jess’ side. “Can you look less… obvious?” Jess mutters. She’s the only one with a MonRobot. Assistant bots aren’t uncommon, but usually people have a special permit for them.