The Supervillain and Me

by Danielle Banas

  “So, what? You’re choosing him over me?” Connor tilted his chin up and tried to look tough, but I knew, deep down, he was terrified he might be right.

  “It’s not about choosing, Connor,” I said. “It’s about doing what’s right. Rylan never killed anyone; he’s not the bad guy. But someone else is. If we can find the server sending the signal to the nanobots, then Rylan can destroy it and everyone will be normal again. We can save the city.”

  “Fine, then.” Connor waved his hand toward the door. “If you want to pick him, if that’s what you want to do, I don’t see what’s stopping you.”

  He was missing the bigger picture. Maybe I had it all wrong. Since Connor received his powers, I thought he was superhero first, brother second. But now, Red Comet didn’t even think about coming to the rescue. As his lips curled at the sight of Rylan’s arms around my waist, I realized Connor cared significantly more about saving me than saving Morriston.

  Rylan released me and stepped forward, squaring off against my brother. “What’s stopping us is that we don’t know where to find the server. I have an idea—city hall. But no one knows where they moved their offices to … except maybe you.” Rylan ran a hand through his hair, then hesitantly stretched out his hand. Connor hated Rylan, and Rylan wasn’t particularly wild about Connor, but he wanted to make a truce. “As much as I hate to admit this, Connor,” Rylan said, “we need you.”

  * * *

  Rylan and I waited in the hallway for Connor to change into his super suit. I had traded my Hall of Horrors costume for my street clothes, and Rylan already wore his full Iron Phantom regalia. I was beyond thankful the school was empty. Seeing Morriston’s most worshipped and most feared supers together in the same room would be difficult to explain.

  I bounced on the balls of my feet and pulled at the sleeves of my sweatshirt. Connor could be worse than a teenage girl when it came to getting dressed, and I was afraid that if he didn’t hurry up, we would be too late. He clearly wasn’t taking mine and Rylan’s fears seriously. Connor had seen the nanobots work for himself, but I didn’t think he truly believed what was happening. In his mind, anything city hall did was good.

  “Connor, get out here!” I yelled, pounding my fist on the bathroom door. My nerves were starting to make me nauseous again. “I feel like I’m going to throw up.”

  “What? Are you okay?” Rylan urgently pressed his wrist to my forehead. “Do you need to sit down?”

  I kicked the door of the men’s room with the tip of my boot, wincing and hopping on one foot when I crushed my toes. “No, Rylan. Since I met you, I always feel like I’m about to throw up. Connor, come on!”

  Rylan leaned against the wall and smoothed out a wrinkle in his mask. The lights in the school were shut off apart from the dim red glow of the emergency exits. Rylan’s dark suit rendered him practically invisible, and I jumped when his disembodied voice muttered in my ear, “I’m choosing to take that as a compliment.”

  “Take it however you want.”

  “I shall.”

  “Will you lovebirds shut up?” Connor emerged from the bathroom with his Red Comet tights intact and his phone pressed against his ear. “You disgust me. Dammit!” He scowled at his cell, and I thought I heard a piece of the plastic case crack beneath his fingers.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Well, first, I called Hunter. That’s Fish Boy to you,” Connor said to Rylan. “He’s meeting us downtown. And second, I called Dad, and he’s not answering his phone. I keep trying, but…”

  My stomach plummeted. With the excitement of the show and the terror that ensued after the stage light crashed down, I forgot to ask Rylan if he ever saw my dad come in. I thought back to that moment, lying on the filthy stage with my head beating like a drum. I tried to picture the scene in my mind. The audience had been still. Connor jumped out of his seat and ran to help, and to his left—I remembered now. To his left had been an empty seat. Dad never showed up.

  And now we didn’t know where he was.

  With one long sniffle, I managed to hold in my tears. This whole mystery with the nanobots was so unbelievably confusing and wrong, and crying wouldn’t make it better. Straightening my shoulders, I forced my face into a blank, emotionless mask. Because that’s what all the supers did in the midst of catastrophe. Even if a building was blowing up or someone was dying, they didn’t show fear.

  “Fine. So, what now?” I asked.

  Both Connor and Rylan seemed taken aback by my abrupt change in attitude. Clearing his throat, Connor motioned for us to follow him outside. Icy tendrils of air crept up the back of my neck and stung my cheeks. I quickly pulled up the hood of my sweatshirt.

  Rylan watched my every move. “She doesn’t have a mask,” he observed.

  Connor didn’t bother glancing over his shoulder as he led us into the trees behind the school. “She’ll be fine. Worse comes to worst, I’ll play it off like I just saved her from you.”

  I punched Connor in the back. He didn’t even flinch. “She has a name,” I said. “And she doesn’t appreciate you talking about her like she isn’t standing right here.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Connor turned to face us in the middle of a small clearing. His red boots crunched in a pile of dead leaves. “Look, here’s what’s going to happen. I’m taking Abby,” Connor reached for my arm. “You teleport downtown or whatever it is you do. Meet us on the corner of Springfield and Sixth. You know where that is?”

  Rylan nodded. “Sure, but I think I’ll take Abigail with me, if you don’t mind.”

  “Actually, I do mind.” Connor pulled on my right wrist, and Rylan held on to my left. This felt like two little girls fighting over a rag doll, and we really didn’t have time for it. Every second we wasted, all of Morriston was going further and further out of their minds. They would do anything they were told without a second thought. Didn’t anyone else understand how dangerous that was?

  Rylan gave my arm a tug, and I fell into his chest. “Look, I’m really not trying to be a jerk, but it’s freezing out here. Do you think Abigail would rather fly a million miles an hour with you or teleport with me?”

  “Abigail is turning into an icicle,” I interjected. “Teleporting sounds lovely.”

  Connor harrumphed, knowing Rylan had him beat. Tonight in Morriston, for one night only: Battle of the Testosterone: My Brother vs. My Boyfriend.

  “Okay, great, fantastic,” Connor said, though I could distinctly feel him rolling his eyes behind his mask. Before I could call him out on it, he bent his knees and rocketed into the sky.

  We watched the red blur that was my brother grow smaller and smaller until he disappeared completely. Rylan shrugged and held out his hand. “You ready?”

  I gulped, suddenly nervous that, no matter how much I disliked Morriston High, something bad would happen tonight and I would never see it again. I lied when I said, “Yeah, I’m ready.”

  I held my breath, and we rode the Black Vortex of Terror into town. Connor was waiting for us when we arrived, leaning against a parking meter and trying to look debonair. The tights kind of took away from his desired level of sophistication, not to mention no one was even on the streets to see him. As usual, Morriston turned vacant after dark. The only way people would be outside tonight was if someone forced them. Which wasn’t highly unlikely.

  A gust of wind blew off the river, chilling me to the bone. Rylan and Connor were too busy glaring at each other to move, so I picked a random direction and started walking down the street. Someone had to take initiative.

  Connor grabbed the back of my hood and pulled me to a stop. “Where are you going? That’s the wrong way.”

  “Right, uh, yeah. Yeah, I totally knew that.”

  Connor snorted. “Right. City hall’s new offices are this way.” He pointed to the nearest intersection, and we followed behind him.

  We crossed the street and passed a line of shady-looking shops, including but not limited to: a toy store, an abandoned café, and a filthy
ice cream parlor next to one of the dirtiest, smelliest alleyways known to mankind. When Connor finally stopped, I craned my neck and looked at the building stretching toward the sky. As far as offices went, it was pretty unassuming. Made of gray brick, it housed a bank and a deli on the ground floor next to a revolving door. It wasn’t a tiny building, but it certainly wasn’t one of the tallest in the city.

  Connor looked up and down Springfield Street with his hands on his hips. A lamppost flickered on the corner, then went out. “Where the hell is Hunter? He told me he took out his chip. There’s no reason he shouldn’t be here.”

  As if on cue, a rumble sounded from the next street over. The sound grew louder and louder, culminating in Fish Boy’s motorcycle screeching around the corner, coming to a halt in front of us. Hunter tugged off a helmet, straightened his mask, and ruffled his hair with two webbed hands.

  “Hey, friends. Ready to save the world?”

  “We saved it already,” Connor said dryly. “You were too slow.”

  “Yeah, right. This baby goes zero to sixty in three seconds.” He patted his handlebars. “Speaking of which, should I feed the meter, or do you think I’ll get a pass tonight because of this nanobot nonsense?”

  “I think you’ll be fine,” Rylan said. He was watching Hunter like he couldn’t be sure whether to take him seriously or not.

  “Cool. Oh, hey! It’s you!” Hunter looked Rylan’s Iron Phantom suit up and down. “You don’t look anywhere near as scrawny as you do on TV.”

  Rylan’s green contacts caught the light as he stared at Hunter. “Um … thanks?”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Can we go inside now?” Connor asked. He was chomping on something beneath his mask. Gum, probably.

  “You’re sure this is the right place?” Rylan asked. His voice sounded determined, but when I cast a sidelong glance, I noticed Rylan anxiously pulling at the back of his mask.

  “This was the address written in my dad’s office at our house. So I’m going to avouch that this is it.”

  “Avouch? You mean vouch?”

  “Nope.” Connor smirked, and the corners of his mouth formed a crease in his mask. “Avouch. It was on my Word of the Day calendar. Look it up, wise guy.”

  No, he wasn’t lying. Connor really did own a Word of the Day calendar and used the words he learned at extremely stressful and unhelpful moments. He also used insults from the 1890s and pretended like they were a big slap in the face.

  Rylan was obviously sick of arguing with my brother because he didn’t say anything further. Instead, he squared his shoulders and strode through the building’s revolving door like he owned the place. Hunter followed, and Connor and I brought up the rear.

  “So … who came up with the name Fish Boy?” I heard Rylan ask.

  Hunter shrugged. “My grandma picked it out. Couldn’t tell her no.”

  Unsurprisingly, the lights in the lobby were low. An overturned janitor’s bucket and mop lay on the floor, soaking the gold tiles with sudsy water. Whoever had been using them clearly left in quite a hurry—or was forced into leaving.

  A single guard sat behind a gleaming reception desk. He straightened when he saw us, and Connor gave him a little wave.

  “Evening, sir. We’re just heading upstairs. Don’t mind—”

  The guard stood, raising his gun. The red glow of his microchip flickered. He fired off two shots at our heads, forcing us to duck.

  “Don’t worry, guys. I got him.” Connor stood, rearing back his fist as the guard ran around the desk. Just as he raised his weapon again, I stuck my foot out, sending him crashing to the lobby floor. Rylan kicked the man’s gun away and punched him out before Connor had time to move.

  “Too slow,” I told my brother while Rylan chained the guard to the desk using the man’s own handcuffs. Connor grumbled something incoherent. It looked like he was trying really hard not to flip us off.

  With the guard incapacitated, we headed for the elevator. As we waited for the car to arrive, it finally hit me how serious this was. I thought I knew what we were getting into, but I was wrong. The force of what we could face in the city hall offices beat me down until my legs wobbled like jelly. Injury, destruction, something worse? Sure, Rylan, Connor, and Hunter had badass superpowers, but we were all so young. I looked at my feet. I felt tiny, like a child. I was nothing but a kid, and Rylan’s, Hunter’s, and Connor’s tight costumes and silly superhero names suddenly made them look ridiculous instead of intimidating. How was this going to work? I was stupid to think we could do anything about the nanobots. Could the four of us really make a difference in the lives of thousands?

  “What floor do you think?” Rylan asked when the doors opened in front of us.

  Without thinking, I said, “Twenty-sixth. Top floor.”

  “How’d you know?”

  The shiny brass walls of the elevator car displayed our reflections. They scrunched my features until I appeared short and squat and stretched the boys into string beans. Looking like clowns in a fun house didn’t exactly help my diminishing confidence.

  “We’re talking about my father,” I said. “He wouldn’t want to sit in an office any lower than the highest floor.”

  “Okay, listen,” Connor said. “When we get in there, just follow my lead.”

  Rylan grumbled, “Does your lead involve distraction by means of recitation of your fancy calendar?”

  Connor paused, scratching his head. “Re-ci-ta-tion,” he sounded out.

  “Whoops, sorry. That must be tomorrow’s word. Didn’t mean to spoil it for you.”

  Hunter leaned toward me, whispering, “Thanks for inviting me. This is way better than reality TV.”

  By now I was pressing my temple against the wall to soothe my flourishing migraine. “Do you guys need to keep fighting?”

  Apparently the answer was a resounding yes because Connor and Rylan were still going at it when the elevator dinged on level twenty-six. It was a wonder either of them managed to rescue anyone with their abundance of sensitivity issues.

  Hunter and I watched as Connor pushed Rylan’s mask over his eyes. Rylan retaliated with a swift kick to Connor’s shin.

  Grabbing them both by the shoulders, I nearly bashed their heads together. “Focus,” I growled.

  We crept down the hall into the labyrinth of cubicles. Each space appeared empty, and my nerves eased slightly. If no one was here, it would be easier to destroy the server. And if the server wasn’t here, then we could go home, gain some intel about city hall, and form another plan—one less dangerous than creeping into a building practically blind.

  I clearly wasn’t cut out for the superhero life.

  “Do you hear that?” Connor whispered.

  We paused in the middle of the floor, outside a dark conference room. Someone was speaking, laughing deep in the office. Rylan crouched low and looked around the corner of the nearest cubicle. No one. Hunter inched forward across the floor, and Rylan followed. I linked one hand with Rylan’s and the other with Connor’s, and we formed a chain as we made our way through the building.

  More laughing. A bit of singing. Then an advertisement for a tanning salon.

  Someone had the radio on. Talk radio.

  My father loved talk radio.

  Hunter waved his hand and motioned to a glass wall in the corner of the office. The room was huge, lavish, filled with couches and leather chairs that undoubtedly belonged to my dad. Nothing less than the best for the mayor of Morriston.

  A blaring radio sat on an immaculately clean wooden desk next to three computers and a tall, humming server bank. Green lights flashed across the server at random intervals. Bright orange cables were coiled in a heap on the floor. Part of me expected the computers to be bigger, more impressive and less like the average laptop. But that’s what they were. And they were also so close I could almost feel myself picking them up and smashing them into the office’s white walls.

  “Is anyone in there?” I asked.


  “Can’t tell,” Rylan whispered. “I could teleport in and see.…”

  Connor shook his head and pulled us toward the door. “No. We all go in, or no one goes in at all.”

  The door didn’t creak when we pushed it open. The radio was louder in here, and the tanning-bed commercial had turned into an ad for a grocery store chain. The high-backed office chair faced away from us, overseeing a panoramic view of Morriston through floor-to-ceiling windows. The chair shifted, and I heard Rylan’s breath catch as the occupant’s shoes brushed along the carpet. We weren’t alone.

  “Dad?” Connor called tentatively.

  A light chuckle sounded from the opposite side of the desk. My dad didn’t laugh much, but when he did, it was much deeper—nothing like this.

  “Dad?” Connor called again. Ever so slowly the chair squeaked, turning around.

  My feet froze to the floor.

  Rylan should have teleported us back home. Though, judging by the pale and sweaty sheen his cheeks adopted, I doubted he could’ve run, let alone use the Black Vortex of Terror.

  Connor’s hand fell slack in mine. I felt a panic attack coming as our father’s hand reached forward to shut off the radio. In. Out. In. In … I tried to remember how to breathe. Just then I realized how much I was counting on Rylan being wrong. It couldn’t be him. He couldn’t have destroyed the city he loved so dearly. I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping when I opened them that the world would vanish to dust. But my father was still there. He was still responsible.

  Please, anyone but him.

  When he caressed the computer controlling the nanobots, a dazed smile appeared on his face. Against my better judgment, I took a step forward, choking back the bile that threatened to rise in my throat. Maybe I had dared to hope too much.

  My father was sitting right in front of me, perched in his office chair. But there was something else too.

  A microchip blinking red in his wrist.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “I’m sorry.” Dad’s voice came out hoarse as he struggled to breathe, like the power of the nanobots was too much to bear. “He told me to call him if someone came.” His hand shook as he reached for the phone on his desk.