Sidekicked

by John David Anderson

  This is me not holding my breath.

  “Come on, people,” Mr. Masters chides. “The world isn’t going to save itself.”

  I find a seat in front of the giant screen on the far wall, and Jenna settles next to me. H.E.R.O headquarters takes up the entire school basement. In addition to the central hall, where we go to get lectures, there is a large room that runs team combat training simulations and a laboratory for the kinds of science experiments that would give Mrs. Williams, the seventh-grade science teacher, a heart attack. We also each have our own specially engineered rooms that are designed to test our unique abilities. Most of them are filled with practice explosives, lasers, and weapon-toting robots, all meant to simulate the dangers faced by Supers and their sidekicks in the real world. Eric’s room, for instance, looks like a mini dojo, even down to the Japanese scrolls on the wall. Jenna’s has a holographic projector that can generate a posse of gun-wielding hoodlums for her to disarm.

  My room has perfume. And eye charts. And dog whistles. See some evil, hear some evil, smell some evil: that’s my motto. Last week I read the fine print on a credit card application from forty feet away. I identified the sound of a feather landing on a pillow. I smelled one part lemon juice in five hundred parts water. Sharks around the world, eat your hearts out.

  Thankfully, H.E.R.O. training isn’t all about mastering our powers, or I would be totally bored. Every other Monday we have a half hour of forensics—fingerprinting, bullet caliber identification, CSI stuff—and a half hour of martial arts, led by Eric, whose sidekick name is Shizuka Shi, or Silent Death. A little dramatic for someone who refuses to squash spiders, but it sure sounds cool in Japanese. Wednesdays usually offer at least a half hour of lock picking, bomb defusing, police procedure, or something else fun. Friday is usually pizza day. All in all, it is pretty cool, even if I have to spend ten minutes each session just sitting around smelling stuff.

  On days after an “event,” however, being a member of H.E.R.O. isn’t much fun at all. It doesn’t happen often—hardly at all, really—that a supervillain puts one of us in genuine danger. But when it does, Mr. Masters’s face is fixed frown-ways as he ushers us down the stairs.

  “All right, people,” he says sternly. “Let’s get started.”

  Mr. Masters crunches his final pork rind and then fires up the screen. Before he can get going, a light-brown hand appears out of the wall, followed by an arm, a pair of sandals, and a T-shirt that says FAB-U-LUS in glittery white sequins. All of this is connected eventually to the head of Nikki Walters, aka the Wisp, who wears the same nervous expression as always, like a deer about to bolt. Her short black hair is braided into a hundred strands that dance like wind chimes as she shuffles through the wall.

  “Sorry, sorry, so sorry.” She apologizes to each of us individually, saving a “Really sorry, Mr. Masters” for last.

  “It’s all right, Nikki. Though in the future, it’s probably safer to just use the stairs.”

  Nikki nods and sits down in the seat in front of me, and I hold my breath, still expecting her to just fall through it, even though I’ve seen her sit down a hundred times before. I shouldn’t worry. She has terrific control of her powers already—mostly because she uses them every Friday to sneak out of the house. If her parents ever caught her with half of her body hanging out of their brick siding, it would probably be the end of her career as a superhero sidekick. But she has a boyfriend—or at least she is in a perpetual state of being somebody’s girlfriend—so her priorities are a little out of whack.

  My priorities, on the other hand, are chiseled in stone in the back of the room.

  “As you all are aware,” Mr. Masters says, “and as two of you are intensely aware, yesterday saw the capture of yet another villain by the forces of goodness and light.” Mr. Masters says goodness and light the same way my mom says cream and sugar when ordering coffee. Automatically. Like it’s a foregone conclusion. He presses a button on the remote in his hand, and an image pops up on the screen behind him. The first slide shows a photo of the Killer Bee, wings clipped, being turned over to the police.

  “His name is James Cooper. Though we don’t know a great deal about him as yet, we have picked up a few details. Adult male, age thirty-three. Lives in the basement of his mother’s house. Can anyone guess what he did for a living . . . that is, before he became a missile-toting, sidekick-capturing maniac?”

  “Honey factory?” I venture, a little sarcastically.

  Eric spells out postal worker. I think he’s trying to be funny, too.

  “Chemist,” Gavin says, looking at me because he knows I’m good at chemistry.

  “Entomologist,” Jenna guesses.

  Mr. Masters smiles and points. “Right. More specifically, an apiologist. Those drones of his were under the influence of some substance manufactured from the chemicals used in bee communications and were not actually acting of their own accord. They are being treated and will be thoroughly interrogated, but as of now, it seems they were innocent, following orders against their will.

  “The rest of the facts of the case are these,” Mr. Masters continues. “Sometime around four twenty-five yesterday afternoon, the Killer Bee’s drones intercepted Jenna and Andrew on their way home from school, luring them into a trap by fabricating an armed robbery.”

  I look over at Jenna. This was technically her fault. She was the one who spotted the three drones in the alleyway, armed with harpoon guns, huddled over a fourth figure who was struggling against them. By the time I fumbled my mask out of my pack, she was already in costume, ready for anything. We didn’t know it was a ruse—that the struggling figure was just another drone, or that two more of them were hiding behind the Dumpster—though I probably should have heard them breathing. I guess that one’s on me. I have a bad habit of listening to Jenna’s heartbeat whenever we walk home together, and it kind of washes everything else out. I still think maybe we could have beaten them, but six against one and a half isn’t good odds.

  Besides, Jenna wasn’t worried. She had faith.

  Mr. Masters clicks his remote and a second slide pops up, showing Jenna and me helplessly hanging over the pool. Seeing it on the news, it was kind of cool. Now, sitting in front of Mr. Masters, it’s just embarrassing.

  “The Silver Lynx and the Sensationalist were taken by force and transported to the Justicia community pool, where the perpetrator had assembled an elaborate execution involving a crane and a thousand gallons of hydrochloric acid.”

  “Told you so,” I whisper. Jenna smiles.

  “Whether he really intended to kill you,” Masters says, looking at Jenna and me specifically, “or was simply using you is moot.”

  I want to object. Moot is not a word I would use to describe my death. Tragic, perhaps. Premature, definitely. Definitely not moot. But the look on Mr. Masters’s face suggests I should keep my mouth shut. A third slide clicks into place, showing the Fox in all of her blazing, electric, sword-wielding glory, holding her latest prize aloft. “At precisely five thirty-two, the Fox arrived at the scene and quickly dispatched the drones and apprehended the villain. The Sensationalist and the Silver Lynx managed to escape with minor injuries and without being identified, and all the drones were eventually rounded up.”

  Mr. Masters sighs again. “All in all, it was a successful act of heroism,” he says, motioning again to Jenna and me. “Our two members of H.E.R.O. acted with courage and poise, maintaining their secret identities and following the Code at all times.” I glance back at the wall behind me. Courage, maybe. I don’t remember exhibiting any poise. “That you two were apprehended is understandable, given that you were ambushed and outnumbered.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Masters,” Jenna says a little sarcastically.

  He ignores her. “Yet the question remains as to why you were targeted in the first place. Could be coincidence. Or it could be that the Killer Bee was already aware of your identities and your whereabouts and captured you with the express purpose of setting a
trap for the Fox. . . .”

  “Or the Titan,” Gavin says, falsely earnest. The newest member of our group turns and smiles at me, and I really feel like punching him, except it doesn’t seem like a good idea to hit someone who can instantly turn his face into a slab of rock.

  Mr. Masters runs his hand over his crown. His frown deepens. “Clearly, Mr. McAllister, one Super was more than capable of dealing with the likes of the Killer Bee. What concerns me more is how he knew where to find you to begin with.” Mr. Masters’s voice seems to drop an octave. “I would hate to think that any of our identities have been compromised, that maniacs like him have access to that kind of sensitive information. The H.E.R.O. program—in fact, the entire superhero community—depends upon us all working together, trusting one another, no matter the circumstance.”

  Mr. Masters looks at me when he says this. I mean, he stares right at me. I don’t know why. Not sure what I did wrong. I managed to get my mask on. Nobody IDed me. My parents still think I’m their bright and shining star. The other kids at school still think I’m a total dweeb. What has changed? I stare right back, concentrating so hard I can see the capillaries in his eyeballs. I wait for him to blink first before I look away. It’s a small victory.

  Still, he has a point. If the drones were waiting for us specifically, if it really was a trap, then that can only mean they knew who we were, maybe even knew about H.E.R.O. itself. The list of people with that kind of information is a short one, with Mr. Masters pretty near the top of it.

  “I will keep you informed as I learn more,” he says. “But the incident only reinforces the need for all of us to be at our best, which is why we will spend the rest of the day working through our individualized training programs.”

  I groan. I was really looking forward to disarming a bomb or two.

  We all stand. Nikki and Gavin start whispering to each other. Jenna takes off her glasses and slides them into her pocket, then pulls the scrunchie out of her hair. I really don’t feel like spending the day stuck in my room, smelling test tubes. Somehow it feels like I’m being punished for something I didn’t do.

  “Come on, people,” Mr. Masters bellows, clapping his hands. “One day your Supers will call on you to do some real crime fighting, and I don’t want them calling me to tell me how you nearly got them killed.”

  He doesn’t look at me when he says this part at least.

  I head to my own training room, the last one on the left, thinking about real crime fighting, thinking that nine hundred gallons of acid seemed pretty real, and the barb of the harpoon Jenna got jabbed with looked pretty real, and the bruises around my wrists felt pretty real. I open the door when Mr. Masters stops me.

  “Andrew, can I have a minute?”

  I nod. The man can stop time. If I don’t give it to him, he’ll just take it anyway.

  “I understand this can be difficult,” he starts, but I put my hand up. I know exactly what he is going to say.

  “I know, sir. And I’m sorry about yesterday,” I interrupt. “I left my belt in my locker. And I guess I had other things on my mind. I didn’t think . . . I mean, you don’t expect a bunch of nut jobs in bumblebee suits to hijack you on the way home from school.”

  Mr. Masters puts a hand on my shoulder. You don’t realize how tall some people are until they put their hand on your shoulder and you realize you can probably fit snugly under their armpit. I can smell the vinegar on his breath.

  “That’s not it,” he says, “though I do think leaving a bandolier full of chemical weapons in your locker violates the school’s zero tolerance policy. But believe it or not, this isn’t even really about you.”

  The OCs. Somehow I put them in danger. Here comes the speech about the public good. “I know. I should be more careful. People could get hurt,” I say, shrugging my shoulders, hoping his hand might slip off, but he just grips it tighter.

  “No, really, I mean it. It isn’t about you,” he says carefully, his Lurch-like eyes boring into mine, wrinkles lining up along his sloped and shiny forehead.

  Mr. Masters is talking about him. About my hero.

  He seems to scramble for the right words. “He’s going through . . . how best to put this . . . a kind of identity thing. But I want you to know that I’ve asked the other Supers to keep an eye on you.”

  Like the Fox.

  “I don’t need a babysitter,” I say, with less conviction than I would have liked. That earns me the raised eyebrow again.

  “We all need saving every once in a while,” he says.

  I nod. Hard to argue given yesterday’s whole pool/acid/dangling/bumblebee thing

  “He’ll come around eventually,” Mr. Masters adds.

  “I know,” I say, though I’m sure Mr. Masters can see right through me. If he does, he doesn’t call me on it. Believe it or not, there’s nothing in either the sidekick or the superhero code about lying. There can’t be. Superheroes lie all the time. It’s the cost of doing business in our line of work.

  Still, there is nothing Mr. Masters can say that will convince me that the man who is supposedly my Super will ever save me from anything. Not anymore.

  “Just be patient,” Masters says, trying hard to smile and failing miserably. “And work on your listening skills.” Then he turns and heads for his office and I duck into my room, thinking that “Be patient” should definitely be part of the Code. Rule number five, I guess. Alongside “Don’t panic,” “Don’t leave your utility belt in your locker,” and “Stay away from people dressed up like insects.”

  But what do I know?

  I spend the last hour of H.E.R.O. training in a fog, allegedly practicing my surveillance techniques, listening to snippets of conversations taking place on the floors of the school above me. Normally this is a favorite exercise of mine, as Mr. Masters pretty much gives me permission to eavesdrop on anyone, even the other teachers. “Especially the teachers,” he sometimes says. It’s how I found out that Debbie Mansfield has a crush on Steven Eldred, which is unfortunate since Steve has a crush on Mark Fizer. It’s how I found out that Eli Cummings, our former resident computer nerd, was hacking through the school’s internet security system and then charging guys five dollars apiece to sneak into the computer lab during lunch to play Call of Duty.

  It’s also how I found out that Margaret Sabo thought I was “kinda cute.” I couldn’t return the compliment, of course—I wasn’t supposed to know—but it was nice to hear, even if it was followed by Caitlin Brown’s comment of “Seriously? Beanhead? Seriously?”

  But today I’m not interested in spy work. I just sit there, thinking about yesterday, and Jenna and me dangling on that line, and how there was absolutely nothing I could have done to save myself or her. I wonder what it would take to get him to show. Wonder if he even knew I was in trouble. Or if he cared.

  The alarm in my soundproof room rings. In ten minutes, classes will be released for sixth period, and we all have to make it up and out of the teachers’ lounge before the classrooms vomit students into the halls.

  As I walk out, I see Gavin hand Jenna a towel to wipe her face with. They were both battling laser-blasting androids. I can smell the heat from the scorch marks on the walls of their training rooms. He wraps the towel around his neck and flexes just so his biceps will bulge through his shirt. I didn’t know seventh graders had biceps. I thought we didn’t get them until high school, when they were passed out with shaving cream and pamphlets telling us to say no to drugs. I can’t help but wonder if I haven’t been fooling myself the past year or so. Maybe biceps are a requirement for being a sidekick. If so, I still have a lot of work to do.

  Eric stands next to me and follows my gaze.

  Box of rocks, he signs. As in, dumb as a. As in, don’t worry about Gavin McAllister. He’s not worth your time.

  “Easy for you to say,” I say, turning so he can read my lips better. “You know kung fu.”

  Eric shrugs, conceding the point, then punches me playfully on the shoulder, which
actually hurts, though I resist the impulse to rub it because Gavin’s looking in my direction. We all head up the stairs.

  As I leave, I glance back at Mr. Masters, who is looking after us, hands clasped in front of him as if in prayer. I think about what he said, about bad guys targeting sidekicks to get at their Supers. What if he was right? What if there was someone out there who wanted a shot at the Titan and somehow knew who I was and that he and I were connected?

  As soon as I think it, I snort. If anyone out there is thinking about using me to get at my Super, they are going to be sorely disappointed.

  5

  IT’S NOT A DISEASE

  I suppose you’ll want to hear about where I come from, and where I got my powers, and what radioactive bug I was bitten by, and all of that junk. You’ll want to know that my father was a researcher for a top-secret government program studying the properties of dark matter or that my mother was really an Amazon princess blessed with godlike powers. But the truth is, my father is an accountant—not a fake accountant masquerading as a costumed vigilante, but a real honest-to-god, dull-as-a-dictionary accountant with a closet full of white shirts and a carefully managed pension. My mother is an aide at Brookview Elementary—an aide because she got pregnant with me while in college and never finished her teaching degree. Neither of them has any superpowers, unless you count my father’s ability to calculate tips instantly or my mother’s uncanny ability to forget I’m not four anymore, sometimes still wiping the corner of my mouth with a napkin damp with her own spit the way she did when I was a toddler.

  The truth is, I was born the way I am, without gamma rays, without cosmic intervention, without a flashback episode explaining my secret origins. I was born with a condition—doctors were careful to call it a condition and not a disease—called hypersensatia, which basically just allows me to see and smell and hear things better than most people. And when I say most people, I mean better than six billion other people. In fact, there are apparently fewer than five hundred people who have this condition, and none of them to the same extent as me. That makes me special, I suppose, though I prefer to think of myself as one of a kind.