Junior Hero Blues

by J. K. Pendragon

  Rick’s reply took a while. I plunked my head in my hands as I waited, the bright colorful lights of the city going blurry behind my unfocused eyes.

  Finally my phone vibrated again. I’m just dealing with some stuff.

  Okay. U know u can always talk to me right?

  I don’t know Javi. Maybe we aren’t compatible.

  My eyes stung under my mask, and I threw my legs down over the ledge, leaning forward to catch my breath. He wasn’t . . . he wasn’t breaking up with me, was he? Why are u saying that? Did I do something wrong?

  He texted me a quick No. Then after a moment, I think it’s me. I don’t know. I can’t talk about it.

  But I want to help you.

  You can’t.

  Please? I hated sounding like I was begging. But I hated the thought of losing him a little more. He didn’t respond, even though I waited up long after I was in bed that night, and finally dozed off with my phone still in my outstretched hand, waiting for him to text me back.

  Rick wasn’t in school all week, and I didn’t get any more texts from him. I was starting to get really annoyed at him. I mean, it was one thing to break up with me over text, and a whole ’nother to do it in such a vague, cop-out sort of way. I was mostly just worried about him though, I think.

  On Saturday I spent the whole morning in the business sector, helping a group of volunteers and heroes clean up some of the damage the battle had done. Captain Justice was there too, cleaning up a different kind of damage by talking a whole bunch with TV stations and reporters, apologizing for what had happened, explaining the situation and what was being done to rectify it. I guess the League couldn’t really afford a drop in action-figure sales, especially with a Hound to watch out for.

  The Raven wasn’t helping with the cleanup (she said she’d done “enough cleaning back in Czechoslovakia to last a lifetime”), but she did bring me lunch, which was nice. We sat on an overturned piece of concrete and talked.

  “Were you born in Czechoslovakia?” I asked, and she nodded through her ham sub.

  “Yes. A very small town there. My family was very strict and religious, so when they found out about me and my brother’s abilities, they called us čarodějnice. Witches. We had to go to religious school, where they tried to work it out of us with cleaning. I never clean now.”

  “You have a brother?”

  “Yes. Twin brother.”

  “Where’s he now?”

  She shrugged. “Don’t know. Dead, probably.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.” I looked away, wondering why she was suddenly sharing personal information with me. Maybe because she’d seen me without my mask, so she wanted to return the favor? I wondered what her life was like, outside of being a superhero. Did she have a husband? A wife? Children?

  “It was a long time ago.” She glanced at me. “You don’t have any siblings, do you?”

  “How did you know?”

  “You are used to being the center of attention.”

  I snorted into my drink. “You wouldn’t say that if you met me in real life.”

  “Oh really? Is this not real life for you?”

  “That’s a good question.” I swallowed the rest of my sandwich and crumpled up the wrapper. “Sometimes I think it’d be easier if this was the real me.” I fiddled with my straw, making scraping noises as I pulled it in and out of the lid. “What if I just became Blue Spark all the time? Maybe it’d make all my problems go away.”

  “Don’t you have a family?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. But I feel like this is pulling me away from them anyway.”

  “Well.” The Raven stood and hopped off the piece of concrete, helping me down as well. “I don’t often give personal advice, so cherish this. Family, and a life outside of the League, it’s important. So, you do whatever you can to keep from losing them. Even if it goes against what Captain Justice says you should do. Hmm?”

  “Yeah. I feel like you’re my mentor or something.”

  “Ha! Just as long as you don’t feel like I’m your grandmother. Now, I’m going to make Paulo eat something. Otherwise he’ll talk until he falls over, and won’t that be politically embarrassing.”

  She left, and I went back to sweeping up broken glass. I guess I was pretty into it, because it took me like five minutes to realize there was someone watching me from around a corner. He was wearing a hoodie and sort of backlit from the glare off one of the glass buildings that had managed to avoid being shattered, so I didn’t recognize him at first. He was just standing there, peering at me, until I finally stood up straight and shaded my eyes to see him properly.

  The moment I recognized him, he disappeared, vanishing around the corner. I dropped the broom and raced after him, against all my better judgment. “Hey! You!” I yelled, hoping to get someone else’s attention. This was stupid, and the last time I’d chased after him, bad things had happened, but I couldn’t stand the thought of him getting away. And why the hell had he been following me?

  “Stop!” I shouted, just as he ran into a dead end and turned to face me. For some reason he was wearing his uniform, with the hoodie over top of it, but I recognized his mask and face underneath.

  “I want to talk to you.” He drew a ragged breath. He was hunching a little, but it only served to make him look bigger and scarier as he took a few menacing steps toward me.

  “Don’t come near me,” I shouted, pressing the button on my belt to call for backup. “Last time you almost killed me. And why did you take my mask off?”

  He laughed, his voice hoarse and angry. “I almost killed you? You’re the one who can’t leave me the hell alone while I’m trying to go about my business.”

  “Why are you here?” I was standing my ground, but desperately wanting to run away from him and the panic that was rising in me as he walked closer. I hadn’t been scared of him before. But that was before he’d almost choked me to death. Before he’d seen my face, and might recognize me and my family next time we were out together. The little pit of anger in the bottom of my stomach swelled.

  “Stay away from me,” I said again, trying to sound threatening.

  “Blue?” Captain Justice’s voice came from behind me, and I turned, relieved to see him and the Raven rushing down the alleyway toward me. Captain Justice pulled one of his electric batons off his back, and the Raven lifted her hands, glowing purple energy surrounding them.

  “That’s Jimmy Black.” My voice wavered a little. Damn it, why was I so scared of him?

  Captain Justice took a step toward Jimmy, who, to my surprise, backed away a little, looking wary.

  “What are you doing here?” asked Captain Justice, his voice calm. “There are over twenty League members just around the corner. What are you hoping to accomplish?”

  Jimmy shrugged. “You saying I should run away?”

  “You’re a known criminal,” said the Raven. “You assisted the Organization in stealing private information. We should take you in to the League for questioning.”

  And then Jimmy did something really, really weird. He glanced at me, locking eyes with me for a minute. And then he held his wrists out toward Captain Justice. “Yeah. Yeah, arrest me.”

  “That’s fishy,” I said. “He’s probably got a bomb on him or something.”

  But Captain Justice didn’t listen to me. Instead he went, grabbed Jimmy, and put his hands behind his back and freaking arrested him. And Jimmy just let him. He was holding his head down, and his expression was hidden behind the hood, but his whole posture was slumped. Like as soon as Captain Justice touched him, he’d just shut down.

  “There’s something going on!” I hissed at the Raven as Captain Justice led him away to the League jet.

  The Raven nodded. “Yes, I agree. But I don’t think it’s what you think it is.” She glanced at me sideways. Jimmy started to struggle, thrashing around in Captain Justice’s arms. A bunch of other League members rushed forward to help him, and I watched as Jimmy’s hood fell back and he screamed, a
ll the reporters’ cameras on him as he was forcefully led into the jet.

  “I have seen this kind of reaction before,” said the Raven. “He’s fighting the brainwashing.”

  Jimmy Black was taken into the League headquarters and retained in one of their fancy holding cells. I hung around outside with the Raven while Chelsea and Captain Justice went in to interrogate him. When they came out, they were both exhausted and disappointed.

  “He’s definitely brainwashed,” said Chelsea. “But he refuses to believe it. He’s irate. It looks like the brainwashing slipped for a little bit. I don’t know how. Maybe your fight jarred him.” She nodded at me. “But he wasn’t able to beat it completely. It’s back, and he’s not letting me in.”

  Captain Justice sighed and tilted his head back, rubbing the base of his neck. He looked really old suddenly, although it might have just been the lighting. The rest of the League headquarters were bright and airy and modern, but the holding cells had been built in the eighties by the Organization, and you could tell. “I don’t like keeping someone who’s potentially innocent here. But letting him go back to the Organization could only be worse.”

  “My recommendation is that we keep him here,” said Chelsea. “Try to keep him comfortable, and hope that he eventually decides to let me remove the brainwashing. It’s the best we can hope for. If it’s all right.” She glanced at Captain Justice. “I’d like to head home now. My husband’s out of town, and I had to pay a babysitter last minute.”

  Captain Justice gave her a small but warm smile. “Of course, Chelsea. Thank you for your assistance.”

  She nodded and left.

  “Well.” He turned to me. “With your help, we may have saved that young man from doing something he may one day regret very much. So thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it,” I said. The truth was, I felt awful. It was one thing to fight bad guys who were actually bad. It was another to realize that the person you’d been taking out all your righteous anger on is actually probably some polo-shirt-wearing businessman with like five kids. How many of the other villains at the battle had been brainwashed too? The dark underground cells here reminded me of the creepy underground prison at the Organization building, and I remembered with a shudder that terrifying old lady rushing toward me, her face all stretched and inhuman. What kind of person was she, to do that kind of thing to other people?

  But I guess she wasn’t really a person at all. Not anymore.

  At this point you’re probably like, Oh come on, when is he gonna figure it out already? Jeez, stop being so excited to witness my suffering. You rude person. But yeah, I am not, actually, completely lacking in a brain, so I did eventually figure it out. Specifically when I got a call from Rick’s mom on his cell phone the day after next, explaining that Rick had vanished without a trace, leaving all of his things at home, and I was the only other person she could think of who might have some idea where he was.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I haven’t seen him for days. Since before I came to your house.”

  “Oh. Okay.” She sounded awful. Like she was barely keeping it together, but still desperately trying to sound civil and polite. “Well, we’re going to file a missing person’s report unless we hear from him. So, please, if you get any contact from him . . .”

  “I’ll let you know. I promise.”

  I put my phone back into my backpack and leaned against my locker, biting the inside of my cheek and trying to think of what could possibly be wrong with Rick. I went through every different possible explanation I could think of, all of them ridiculous and unlikely. Drugs? But he was on the football team. Maybe he was still really depressed over the car crash and suicidal? But he’d told me everything else, why wouldn’t he tell me about that? I’d assumed he was just mad at me about something, but if he’d disappeared from home too, didn’t that mean something worse was wrong? Where could he possibly be?

  The textbook I’d been holding slipped out of my fingers and smashed onto the floor. Kendall had just turned the corner coming out of her home economics class and she looked at me confusedly, bending down to pick up the textbook and waving it in my face. “You got a problem with chemistry all of a sudden?”

  “No.” I blinked, but I couldn’t seem to get my eyes to focus. I felt like they must be wide open in some weird caricature-of-fear-type face. “Kendall. What if . . .” I trailed off, unable to say it.

  “What if . . .?” she prompted. “What?”

  I took my book from her and shoved it into my locker, slamming the door to keep it from falling out.

  “Hey, don’t you need that for class?” asked Kendall, and I shook my head, backing away.

  “I’m not going to class. I have to go to the League.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I just . . . I need to check something. Can you cover for me?”

  “What the hell do you want me to say?”

  But I was already gone, Kendall calling a frustrated, “Javier!” after me.

  I was barely outside the school zone before I ducked into an alley and changed into my costume, as quick as I ever had. I didn’t have time to worry about being seen, or anything at all except getting to the headquarters so that I could reassure myself that it wasn’t true. It couldn’t possibly be true.

  Except it could, of course. It all made sense. The way Rick had had to run off to work at the same times I had. The angry way he’d talked about the League. The way he’d avoided me after Jimmy had taken my mask off and seen my face . . .

  I skidded to a halt in front of the League headquarters and went in the hero’s entrance, rushing to take the elevator up to Chelsea’s office. I must have looked wild when she opened the door for me, because she took a step back and her eyes widened. “What’s going on? Blue, are you all right?”

  “Yes,” I said. “No. I need to see Jimmy Black.”

  “Why?” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Blue, you’re panicking. What are you thinking?”

  “I think I might know him.” I forced myself to take calming breaths. “I think I might . . . I think maybe, if I’m right, I can talk him into letting you take the brainwashing off him.”

  “He hasn’t been cooperative,” she said. “But all right, if you think so. I’d prefer if you were a bit more levelheaded beforehand.”

  “I have to know,” I said. “I won’t be able to calm down until I see him.”

  I couldn’t think. I couldn’t begin to form feelings of hope or despair, or anything, until I saw. Until I knew.

  Chelsea led me down, and the elevator took a horribly long amount of time. “You think you know his alter ego? You know we’re not supposed to act on any knowledge we have about alter egos.”

  “But this isn’t a normal situation,” I argued. “He’s brainwashed. I think the person I know is the real him, and Jimmy Black is who he was brainwashed into. I mean—” I brought my hand up to my face. “I don’t even know if it’s him. I have to at least see him, so I know if I’m just going crazy.”

  Chelsea peered at me. “You care for this person a lot, don’t you?”

  “Yeah.” I took a deep, shaky breath.

  “Then the best thing you can do for both of you is to go into this calmly, all right?” Chelsea hooked her arm in mine arm reassuringly. “It’ll be okay.”

  I gulped down another deep breath, this one slightly less shaky. “Okay,” I said, although my stomach jumped as the elevator stopped and the curved metal doors slid open. “I’ll be calm.”

  We went down the dark hallways, and Chelsea spoke to one of the guards. She waited outside while I went in, past the layers of metal, electrified walls, until I was standing in front of the bars. They were reinforced with the same crackling red energy that had thrown the Raven across the room back at the Organization headquarters. Past the bars, Jimmy Black was sitting on a small metal cot, bent over and staring at the ground. He lifted his head a little when I entered, and straightened his back ever so slightly, regarding me through the j
et-black mask that he still wore.

  “Oh,” he said in a low, annoyed voice. “It’s you.”

  “Yeah.” My own voice was too soft and fragile for my liking. “It’s me.”

  He rolled his neck and looked away. His entire attitude was dismissive. Like I wasn’t worth his time or attention. I took a step forward, peered through the bars. I waited, hoping that he would acknowledge me in some way, but the minutes stretched on. “You weren’t at school,” I said finally, so quietly I could barely hear it myself.

  He shifted and tilted his head toward me. “What the hell are you talking about?” The lighting was dim and harsh, and I could only make out the lines of the bottom of his face. His nose. His jaw. His mouth.

  “Your mom called me. She’s worried about you.”

  He stood, suddenly and with force, and stepped toward me. “What,” he said again, “the hell are you talking about?”

  I could see his face now. I recognized his mouth—I’d kissed it—and the shape of his body, and the deepness of his voice, and goddamn, I was going to cry. I bit my lip. “You saw me. I know you know who I am: you took my mask off.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “So I know who you are too. How could I not? Rick, it’s me.” I reached up and took my mask off, lowering it from my face tentatively. He watched me, his eyes dark. I tapped my watch, turning the contacts on so that my eyes went brown, and watched his face, desperately hoping for a spark of recognition. “Do you really not recognize me? Have they brainwashed you that much?”

  Jimmy ground his teeth. “I told them I’m not brainwashed.”

  “But those things you did. The people you hurt. That wasn’t you.”

  Jimmy grinned, a horribly evil smile that distorted his face. “Oh, that’s what you’d like to believe, is it? That I didn’t realize what I was doing? That I’m this good, perfect innocent who was just tricked into doing bad things? Well, sorry to disappoint you.” He turned away, breaking the eye contact that had held me in thrall. I felt as if he’d been stabbing me with a dagger, and now that he walked away, I would fall to the floor, my guts spilling out. “But I knew exactly what I was doing.”