I was still trying to find my jaw. And here I’d thought he’d gotten totally drunk on wearing a black mask.
“I don’t hear game noises. Does that mean you’re free to eat supper?” Mom called from the hallway.
“Gotta go, guys,” I said, and shut things down as fast as I could.
I slept well and got up nice and lazy. I braided my own pigtails, lingered at my computer checking websites but not logging on anywhere, and then wandered into the kitchen where my parents were halfway through breakfast. I flopped into a chair and examined the plate of scrambled eggs and bacon waiting for me. Everything was still warm, and those yellow bits looked like cheese, and who knew what the white bits were? I was pleased.
My mother made the first move conversationally. “I don’t know if you have any friends at other schools, Penny, but The Inscrutable Machine got their wish. Middle schools all over LA have closed for the rest of the semester.”
I finished swallowing a forkful of egg before bothering to answer. “It doesn’t affect me much either way.” Completely true. The attack had been purely a philanthropic gesture.
“I’m with Mech on this, Beebee. I’m convinced that closing down schools was a side effect, or even deliberate cover. I know kids their age won’t mind missing school, but there’s a deeper plan to The Inscrutable Machine’s actions,” Dad insisted. He jabbed his fork in the air at her. He was only gesturing, of course, but Mom met the fork halfway with her knife, gave it a twist, and Dad’s fork went flying. It landed in the sink behind her with the dirty dishes. Have I mentioned criminals are terrified of my mother?
Dad got the message. He’d finished his plate, so he got up and walked around the table to clear his place. Mom paused between two of her last few bites to counter-argue. “I accept Mech’s judgment that they fight like professionals, but they’re thirteen. Even assuming they’re geniuses, at their age and level of experience, a multi-stage scheme is vanishingly unlikely.”
Dad agreed. “You’re right. If they’re as good as Mech thinks they are, and their attack was as devious as it looked, they’re not working alone. An established supervillain is directing them.”
Mom swallowed her last bite. “I don’t like that at all. That level of ruthlessness would be Spider’s hallmark. These children could be as much victims as villains. It would explain a great deal. Equipment. Training.”
She got up and put her own dishes into the sink while I chowed down industriously. I liked to think I’d earned the success I’d had so far, but this was plain dumb luck. The other superheroes were pressuring the only one likely to catch us into a wild goose chase.
“Are you and your friends going to need a ride today, Penny? Now would be the time to tell me,” Mom inquired, her attention turning to other things.
I thought about it, but my mind was already half made up. “I don’t think so, Mom. Being on break is great and all, but I need a day off from being social.”
“You’d better call and let them know,” she suggested.
Good idea. I wandered back to my room, and checked online. Yep, I was the late riser. I invited another three-way chat.
“Good morning, Your Scienceness. What evil will my dark lady bid me commit today?” Ray greeted immediately.
Actually, it cheesed me off a little. “Today is a no villainy day, Ray. I thought I made that clear.”
“No grand villainy, certainly, but we won’t be able to simply buy the resources you need. I was hoping a bit of light exploitation of our super powers might be in order.” He didn’t try to hide how eager he sounded.
That meant I had to say it. I shouldn’t have put it off this long anyway. “Don’t start that, Ray. I’m really getting worried about how into this you are. If I find out you’re committing thefts or something on the side, I don’t know what I’ll do.”
The light, flippant tone disappeared as Ray answered solemnly, “That is exactly why I am not doing anything on the side. I love supervillainy. I’ve designated you the angel on my shoulder because I don’t trust myself.”
“Thank you. I think.” It was flattering, but what a thing to be told.
Relish crept back into Ray’s voice as he went on. “And I, in turn, will be the devil on your shoulder. You need one desperately. We’re the youngest supervillain team in history, and our lives have improved too much since we got our powers. We can’t turn our backs on that.”
Claire reminded us she existed, but still sounded casually unconcerned. “I’m just seizing the day.”
“When we find a chance to switch back to being heroes, I’ll be right there beside you, Penny. I promise you that. I just don’t want to go back to being normal,” Ray concluded.
He had a point, although I still wasn’t going to seize this particular day for anything but lazing around. “The angel is putting her foot down. No villainy until I figure out the bullet puzzle. I had some—ow!” The idea I’d had yesterday flickered through my head just long enough to be erased by a stabbing pain. Maybe my super power didn’t take frustration well. I went on before they could worry. “Dumb headache. Anyway, that means solving the supplies problem and solving it with minimal danger. Preferably no danger.”
“About that…” Claire interjected.
Oh, boy. “Yes?” I asked guardedly.
Sounding as sheepish as a Lutra could, which wasn’t much, Claire explained. “Well, you know I like to poke around superhero websites online, and I have a couple of identities admitted to be E-Claire, and my mother and Lucyfar see each other all the time, so I’ve gotten a few hints…”
She was dragging this out. “Yes?” I repeated, trying to tell myself she was being theatrical, not hiding something so scary it made even Claire shy.
No, she sounded too smug. “I’ve been networking. There are villains who like to point other villains in the direction of valuable targets. I wondered out loud how to get supplies for a mad scientist last night, and a friend of a friend suggested we dig up the Puente Hills landfill. He thought your device that found a jade statue in a middle school could locate any materials you needed in a giant pile of trash.”
“There are landfills in LA?” I had to ask. I mean, that thought was just too weird. The city goes on and on and on. Where would you put one? Puente Hills? That was up past Glendale, wasn’t it? But not far.
“I should have thought of that. I really should have thought of that,” Ray fumed, and he did sound mad, even disgusted with himself. “There’s probably nothing you can’t find in there if you have a good enough recycler.”
I reached automatically to run my fingers over the hard segments of The Machine on my wrist. “I have the most advanced super science recycling machine in the world.”
“I can’t believe I didn’t think of that first. I’ve been enjoying being the muscle too much,” Ray grumped.
“I did prefer the old Ray,” I confessed.
“I’ll try to be both,” he promised. Fair enough. I wouldn’t mind keeping the bowing and the hand kissing and the leering charm. Or the sleek black outfit.
I got back to the subject at hand. “All right. It’s a good idea, but not today. We’ve been getting too much attention. We should be nobodies, but the superhero community is really freaked out by how successful we’ve been. I don’t want to run into Mech again.”
“Is mining a landfill even illegal? It’s trespassing at worst, right?” Claire wondered.
Ray had other worries. “I hope it doesn’t look pathetic. I’m enjoying our reputation.”
I couldn’t help but remember my parents talking over breakfast about a secret plan we didn’t have. “All we have to do is make the dig look mysterious. The community will invent an explanation more impressive than anything we could come up with.”
Then I let out a sigh and slumped in my chair. “Whatever. It won’t be today. I’m going to go take a day off. I’ll talk to you guys when I can’t take any more relaxing.”
I clicked off the mike, started my computer shutting down,
and wandered out into the kitchen. As I lifted my feet one at a time to wrench on my shoes and socks, I told Mom, “I’m going to go for a bike ride. I won’t be long. I’m not going anywhere, I just want to enjoy the weather.” The rains hadn’t started yet, so it was pretty nice out there and probably would be for another month.
When I got around the corner of the house I fished the teleport rings out of my pockets and stuck them on under my sweater. I didn’t plan on using them; they were just something I felt I should keep handy nowadays. I needed to get a belt pouch. I didn’t want a purse, but I was finally carrying too much for pockets.
I climbed onto my regular bike, and went riding down the street. The weather certainly was nice, comfortably cool, and the air refreshed me. Los Feliz had too many trees, so I turned down toward West Hollywood. I didn’t have much to do except bike today. I needed a break, but I didn’t have any games I wanted much to play alone. Maybe I could read some more Sentient Life when I got back. That still sounded like too much excitement. I wanted to build something. Forget the villainy itself; watching my crazy super power construct some wild new toy was rapidly becoming my favorite hobby.
I was only a street over from my lab now, but of course I didn’t have the materials I needed. Wait, I was this close to the lab? I’d biked right down to the school without thinking about it. My taking-a-break skills needed work.
Turning my bike around, I headed back home. A burst of frustration made me pedal fast, and then I might as well keep it up. I raced down the sidewalks at high speed, without many pedestrian obstacles in the middle of the day in this part of town. I made record time and pulled into our driveway just as my legs felt the burn and I began to breathe hard.
That prompted another “Wait, what?” sensation. Even without using the teleport rings, I ought to be exhausted. I slipped inside, didn’t see Mom or Dad, and went straight into the bathroom. Yanking up my sweater, I stared at myself in the mirror.
Stomach muscles. Seriously, I had stomach muscles. Me. Not a cut six pack or anything, but my stomach had definition instead of vague roundness. I flexed an arm and got a bicep I could at least identify.
Claire had said it, hadn’t she? We’d had a lot more reason to exercise since we got super powers. I was kinda sorta in shape now. I tried to roll that thought around in my head, but “Penny Akk” and “in shape” didn’t want to stick. They might have to from now on.
I’d had my ride, so I retreated to my bedroom, shucked the teleport rings into my little-used jewelry box where they’d look like nothing, and flopped down on the bed. Then I flopped right back up, grabbed the stack of Sentient Life graphic novels, and re-re-flopped down to read.
I’d left off at quite a spot. I’d had enough spoilers to know Vera was a computer program, but it was different reading her talking to Delph on his long, lonely trip. Every comment about needing to break to eat or sleep was a lie told by a fake girl afraid of being rejected. He wouldn’t, even if she didn’t believe that. Nobody but Vera talked to Delph. He was completely expendable to the humans who sent him on this journey. So was Vera, a computer program whose quirks were becoming bugs that might soon get her erased, replaced with a fresh installation that didn’t have a personality and wouldn’t care about a lonely hybrid dolphin out in the far reaches of nowhere.
I knew how Vera would solve her problem. She was the program, not the computer that contained it. She would move, although I suspected it would be much harder than that when the time came.
I’d only used my power to make hardware, but it seemed ridiculously versatile. It found magic as obvious as any other physical phenomenon. Would it work on programs? I liked Vera, and that made something stir in the back of my head where my super power told me what to do. I had to let it go. Still no materials.
No materials, and I was trying not to dwell on that lack. I stared over the top of my comic at my statue of The Apparition, hovering in its mirror case next to my computer. I shouldn’t love the statue as much as I did. I’d barely met The Apparition. I wasn’t a fan. I hardly knew anything about her or her villainous career. She was just so strange. The Apparition was exactly the kind of thing I only heard about before I got super powers.
A knock sounded on the door. “Mom?” I asked. Dad tended to bang, or just yell.
“Penny, honey, would you be okay if Brian and I went out this evening? We’ll be leaving around five, and I doubt we’ll be back before midnight. The community wants to have a meeting, and at the last minute they decided they have to have Brian Akk and The Audit’s input,” Mom explained from the other side of the door.
“I don’t see why I wouldn’t be,” I responded.
“I agree. You’re not the kind of girl who gets in trouble by herself.” She knew I wasn’t. Penelope Akk was intelligent, mature, reliable, and had friends who were the worst influences any girl could ask for.
I wouldn’t be able to let this go, would I? It was the lack of supplies that really killed me. If I could build an invention or two, clear my inspiration, I’d be able to relax. Until then, this would eat and eat and eat at me.
I heard Mom’s voice again, but faint and way down the hall, talking to Dad. I scooped up my phone and sent Claire a text message.
“Maybe tonight after sundown?”
ay and Claire met me outside my lab. They would have to wait a minute. I took the elevator down, wrestled my way into my jumpsuit as fast as I could, and grabbed my weapons. Before I hopped in the elevator back up, I scooped some pennies out of the evil statue. As I dropped them into a pocket, it occurred to me that touching them might not have been wise. Eh. Nothing seemed to happen, and I had a hunch the statue was attuned to me—mostly because I’d carried it around for hours but it had affected Claire’s Mom in seconds.
As I stepped back out onto the playground and kicked the door shut behind me, Ray asked, “May I try the teleport rings?”
“I thought you didn’t want them?” I asked defensively. I’d gotten attached to these rings fast, hadn’t I? I slid them off my arms before the argument could go further, and I looked even more selfish and insecure.
When I poured them into his hands, he fastened them around his own forearms and explained, “I can’t afford any short cuts. I have to be faster and smarter than my opponent. I only want to try them out. You said they work on muscle energy, and I’d like to see just how far I can push that.”
I shrugged, opening my mouth to explain how they worked. As I did, I reached up to tap the activating switch for my light cycle. I finished neither action, because Ray’s hand darted out and closed over mine. “I thought a good test would be providing us transportation to our objective.”
“That’s out on the other side of Glendale!” Did he have any idea just how exhausting the bands were?
Well, no. That was part of his point.
“Okay, fine,” I sighed.
“If you ladies will step in close?” Ray leered, his grin almost projecting off his face. You couldn’t suspect his motives, because he wasn’t bothering to hide them.
Claire tried anyway, of course. “This has nothing to do with teleporting at all, does it?” she teased him as she stepped up next to me. There was just enough space between us for him to duck through, and once behind us he crouched down, scooped his arms up under our thighs, and lifted.
A moment later, I was sitting on his forearm, leaning back and holding onto his shoulder for balance but still as securely held as if me and Claire were a couple of pillows. It was just a tad scary to think what exercise was doing for the already super-strong Ray, given what it had done for me and Claire.
Oh, right. He didn’t know how to work them. “They’re not thought-operated, but they might as well be. Focus on where you want to go and take a step.”
He leaned forward, my view jerked, and we were standing on the sidewalk outside the schoolyard. Well, Ray was standing; we were sitting in his arms. He didn’t even need to take a deep breath. Oh, man. These rings really were made for him.
>
“I believe this will work. If you ladies will hold on tight? As tight as you want, in fact,” Ray joked, and then he took a step, and another. Jogging, then lightly running. His gait was all I could keep track of. With each step the world moved, and, since I wasn’t aiming, it felt like a badly spliced movie. After the first few teleports, he spaced them out to merely every three steps or so. That gave me enough time to realize we were already heading up Los Feliz.
This operation would take us even further out in the same direction as the last one. If it made a few people less likely to believe we were based at Northeast West Hollywood Middle, that was fine by me.
I could feel Ray’s slim body rocking in an even rhythm, hear his deep but steady breaths. Yeah, not even he could handle teleporting like this forever. Maybe he was pacing himself somehow? All I could really do was speculate. I spotted when we left Los Feliz behind and when we crossed over the bridge, but I couldn’t keep track of the world flickering around me. I heard a squeaky crunch, and then another before I realized what had changed.
Ray was jumping from car to car now, in traffic, using the rings to jump not to the next car but to one way down the street each time. The densely packed buildings of Glendale danced around us. Cars honked, always behind us. Not many. Maybe for some of these drivers this wasn’t the first time a superhero had used the roof of their car as transportation.
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