Super Zero

by Rhonda Stapleton

  So, if Mason had done it, he’d have to make contact with the villains sooner or later to let them know he was under suspicion. That would be our perfect opportunity to bust him in the act. If he was innocent, however, he could help us figure out the culprit.

  Either way, the plan worked to our advantage.

  Mason jerked his head to look at Vigilante, finally acknowledging his presence. “You think one of the Midwest league sold us out?”

  Vigilante nodded slowly.

  Mason scratched his chin, deep in thought. “This does present a problem.” He looked at me. “We still need to meet with them, though. How long can you hold on to the crystal, Jenna? The only person it’s safe with right now is you. So I think it’s best to keep it on your person until we figure out who the insider is.”

  “Sure, I can keep it.” I’d already planned to anyway, but it was good to have him on the same level as me. Plus, so long as I had the crystal, I also had Vigilante nearby. As dangerous as this situation was, I knew I was in safe hands with him.

  Mason turned and sat back down behind his desk in his chair, resting his elbows on his desk. He steepled his index fingers. “You can hide out somewhere until we get this mess straightened out. I’ll let you know.” He waved his hand to dismiss me.

  “No, I think I’m going to stay here,” I said. It was time to stand up for what I felt was right. Which meant first standing up to Mason. “I’m a part of this now, so I need to be here helping. Lots of innocent lives are at stake, including those of the next league to get the crystal. Squirreling me away isn’t going to get this problem solved.”

  He studied my face in silence for a moment before giving me a short nod. “Fine. But stay here in the building until we go to the League of Heroes.”

  I darted out of his office before he could change his mind. I won! I’d convinced Mason to agree with my side for once.

  “Okay, what now?” I asked, once Vigilante and I were back at my office.

  He parked it in the seat across from my desk and leaned forward, his intense eyes aimed at me. “First, we keep an eye on Mason. If he’s in on it, he’ll slip up sooner or later.”

  I squirmed in my seat. “I’m not fully convinced it’s him. Maybe someone else was in on it but—”

  “Mason led you right into the lion’s den.” Vigilante shook his head, disgust written across his face. “I never would have thought he’d stoop that low.”

  What did he mean? I’d never seen Mason stoop to anything. My cousin Britney’s smiling, goofy face popped up in my head. I guess his cheatin’ ways alone proved he was capable of being unscrupulous.

  “I do think you’re right about watching him,” I finally said. “So let’s plan to do that first.”

  He stood. “The first thing we need to do is a little recon in his secret lab.”

  “But I don’t have a key,” I replied. And I highly doubted Mason would just hand it over, especially if he knew I was going to gather evidence to incriminate him.

  “We’re gonna have to figure something out. If Mason has any secrets, they’re hiding in that room.”

  * * *

  A ripple of shock echoed through the League of Heroes as Mason recounted to everyone the story of what had happened at the barn. Apparently two of the other league’s superheroes, including Windo, had been fatally wounded by the snipers, bleeding to death on the grass. Three others were injured, but they’d all managed to escape, taking the wounded with them.

  Actually, I was surprised that news of the demise hadn’t made the newspapers. I imagined the other league was also trying to cover it up until we figured out what happened. No sense tipping off the villains that they’d succeeded in taking out some of the good guys.

  Fortunately no one in our league was seriously injured.

  Storm Wave stood, fury etched across his face. His eyes blazed hot as he stared Mason down. “A traitor in our midst? Preposterous. How could you say such a thing about our own men and women?”

  “It’s the only explanation that makes sense,” Mason replied, his jaw clenched tightly. He thrust out his chest, the M proudly pushed forward. “I was there. I saw what happened. Those golden arrows almost came out of nowhere. It was an ambush.” He paused dramatically. “We were dealing with someone who knew to wait for us.”

  Wait a minute. A thought popped up in my mind, one I hadn’t considered before. Which villain had golden arrows? No one I’d heard of. I’d have to do some research. And if I couldn’t find it, maybe Amy could.

  Rowena flipped a lock of dark hair off her shoulder, rising from her seat. “Where is the crystal now?”

  “I have it safely put away,” I said.

  One of the other superheroes, Seer, looked at me intently, his eyes scanning me up and down. Oh, crap. This guy has X-ray vision. How could I have forgotten?

  He looked away from me then glanced at Rowena, shrugging. Couldn’t he tell it was in my pants pocket? Maybe the cloth around it was some kind of X-ray blocker. How fortunate for me. Or maybe Rowena wasn’t as popular as she liked to think.

  Rowena sniffed, her nose wrinkling as she considered me. “Well, just hand it over to us. We’ll get a real superhero to guard it.”

  My hackles instantly rose at her attitude. “Your ‘real’ superheroes didn’t do a great job protecting me at the barn, did they?” I snarled. Several heated glances aimed back at me. I swallowed. Perhaps not the best thing to say, as I didn’t want to be cooked on the spot. “Look, what I mean is, I’ve done a fine job protecting the crystal for two weeks. Nothing happened.” Except for that first day in Mrs. Wong’s parking lot, but that was beside the point. “I may not have superpowers, but I’m vested in this too.

  “Besides, who am I supposed to hand it over to—you?” I added, looking at Rowena. “Or you?” I said, looking at Storm Wave next. “How do I know who to trust?”

  Mutterings rose from the group as they whispered amongst themselves.

  I waited impatiently while they talked back and forth, trying my best to remain calm. I shot a quick look behind me at Vigilante, who shrugged.

  Finally, Morphero stood. “We have determined what you are to do. You’ll call the leader of the other League of Heroes and arrange for the changing crystal to be handed off. By yourself.”

  Chapter 13

  I sat on the toilet lid in a bathroom stall back at the office, staring at the tiny white tiles on the floor. My stomach churned. I tried dragging in deep, calming breaths to relax myself. How had life gotten so crazy for me in such a short period of time? I remembered how disappointed I’d been to get rid of the changing crystal and scoffed at my own stupidity. I’d give anything now to go back to being a normal, boring girl.

  Normal, boring and without any risk of danger.

  I thunked my head into my hands. Mason had given me the cell phone number of the other league’s leader so I could call and make the arrangements myself, which I’d done the instant I’d gotten back to work. We were going to meet next week, and they’d call me the day before with the location. I was to tell no one else where or when we were meeting, as we couldn’t be certain whom I could trust.

  Which, of course, raised my paranoia to the umpteenth level. I had to watch my back everywhere—God only knows who was going to follow me now.

  Meanwhile, until the crystal was handed off, the council had ordered me to remain stashed away in hiding, so as to prevent any further “unfortunate incidents.” Someone would be in contact with me daily to make sure I was still alive and the crystal was still intact, but would not be asking my whereabouts.

  And since no one else could be trusted, I was supposed to keep away from all superheroes…including Vigilante. The man who saved me. The man I trusted more than anyone else, even though he was proving to be the biggest mystery to me. The man I was falling for.

  How was I supposed to do this on my own? It was impossible.

  I needed assistance from the one person I could always trust—whether I liked it or not. Biti
ng my lower lip, I grabbed my cell and dialed Amy’s number.

  “’Yello.”

  “Ames, it’s me.”

  “You okay?” Concern seeped out of her voice. “I was getting worried. The only thing I’d gotten from you was that quick text message.”

  “I’m okay, I guess.” I relayed the whole story to her, including the part where I was supposed to hand off the crystal by myself.

  “What are we going to do with you?” She clucked her tongue.

  The bathroom door opened. “I’ll call you back,” I whispered, freezing in place in the stall as I ended the call.

  Heavy footsteps pounded to the stall right beside me. Of course. Four other empty stalls in the bathroom, and someone had to pick the one right beside me. I hate that.

  Oh, crap. What if it was someone after the crystal? I drew in a deep breath and held it, trying to calm my nerves. Maybe if I sat still enough, someone wouldn’t know I was there.

  A loud sigh came from the stall as the person plunked down on the seat, then peed for what seemed like four years. My God, how big was her bladder?

  I glanced at my watch. Come on, lady. I needed to talk to Amy.

  Finally she finished up and tugged her clothes back on. I heard a zipper being pulled and a low, almost masculine grunt. The stall’s door opened, and I chanced a peek through the cracks.

  It was Carrie. She walked over to the sink and propped her purse on the marbled countertop, washing her hands in the sink. Well, at least she was clean.

  After she washed off, Carrie turned around and looked at the bathroom stalls, squatting her massive figure down to check for feet. For some reason I quietly lifted my feet up and hovered on the lid of the toilet by just the power of my butt muscles, not wanting her to know I was there.

  She must have been convinced, because she whipped back around to the counter and faced the mirror again, peeling up the corner of her face.

  Underneath was a layer of smooth, pale green skin.

  What the…?

  The thick, fatty layer of her splotchy outer cover, the face I’d always thought was hers, flapped as she caressed the green underneath, definitely much more svelte. I fought the urge to ralph all over the floor.

  A vibration came from her handbag. She quickly pushed the top layer of skin back down into place and dug through her purse to find her cell.

  “Yes?” I heard her say. A pause. “Got it. I’ll be there.” She clicked off her cell, checked her reflection one last time in the mirror, then waddled out of the bathroom.

  I dialed Amy back. “Okay, I’m back.”

  “What’s going on?” she asked. “Where did you go?”

  “I just saw the weirdest thing in the world," I breathed in response. "You won’t believe me.”

  * * *

  Amy did, however, believe me, which was why I decided to try to sneak into Human Resources and check out Carrie’s employment record. Maybe something could be found in there to help me understand what happened in the bathroom. Totally unethical. Completely illegal. But I was so there. Something odd was going down around here, and it kept getting worse by the minute.

  Who was Carrie, and why was she in disguise? Why did she have green skin, but was pretending to be a large, annoying woman?

  After Amy and I hung up, I ran to my desk and tucked a pen and small pad of paper into my free pants pocket so I could write notes. I made my way to the HR department through the back hallways to avoid Carrie, ready to do some snooping.

  When I got to the door I tried to open it, only to find it locked.

  Damnit! I figured the admin locked the file cabinet drawers, but I didn’t know they locked the rooms too. And what’s worse was they were electronic locks, so the old “credit card between the door and frame” trick wouldn’t work.

  Well, there was only one way around this. I was going to have to pick the lock. Now I needed to figure out where to get the equipment and how to use it.

  A memory tickled at the edge of my brain. When I’d first started working for Mason he’d sent me to some dump of a store to buy some kind of odd gadget there. A tool for his utility belt, I think. If anyone had a lock-picking tool, it would be that place.

  I ran back to my desk and grabbed the Rolodex to find the store’s name and address. Ah, there it was—Spacey’s Superhero Specialties, located on West 6th street. Easy enough to find, luckily.

  I headed straight to the elevator, trying my hardest to not make eye contact with Carrie. No such luck, as usual. As soon as she—or should I say, it—saw me, she said in her overly masculine voice, “Did you get a chance to call your sister?”

  I glanced at her face then quickly looked away to peek at my watch. I didn’t want her to know I’d seen that odd event in the bathroom, so I faked like I was in a huge rush. “I sure did, thanks. I’m taking off to meet her now. I’ll be back in a bit. See ya!”

  “Sure thing,” Carrie said, a smarmy smile in her voice. The snot. She totally thought she was fooling me with her act. Maybe she was after the crystal, for all I knew. I couldn’t wait to figure out what was going on so I could bust her.

  I drove my way down St. Clair to West 6th street, turning right and parking in an empty spot on the street. The store was located in the basement of a nightclub, of all places. No one would expect that, which was why it was the perfect location.

  At the front door of the club, I explained to the bouncer, a burly man who had to be at least a foot taller than me, that I was there to pick up an item for The Machine. Evidently he remembered me, because he waved me in. At least that part was easy.

  After skirting around the club’s empty dance floor, I made my way up to the back of the DJ booth, where a door behind the DJ’s equipment hid, blending in with the wall’s psychedelic painted background.

  A quick push, and I strolled down a flight of stairs into the basement. The floor was packed with rows and rows of metal shelves bearing gadgets of all shapes and sizes.

  I made my way to the front counter, where a teenaged guy with the shaggiest hair I’d ever seen sat on a rickety stool, chugging a can of Dr. Pepper. He bit a hangnail on his thumb as he scrutinized a video game magazine.

  “Hi,” I said. “Um, I need—”

  He jerked his head up, his eyes connecting with mine for one intense moment. “A lock-picking kit for electronically locked doors.”

  “Holy crap, how did you know?” I asked, nervous. Maybe he’d rat me out to the cops. Please no, I couldn’t afford to go to the clink.

  He shrugged casually. “I’m no superhero or anything. I’m just intuitive. Don’t sweat it. I only pick up certain signals, especially when people are searching for things. That’s why the old man hired me.” He thumbed toward the back of the store behind him. “Try aisle four, second shelf from the back.”

  I wove my way there, picking through bug repellant, water-resistant goggles and boxes of rifle ammunition. Eclectic collection, to say the least.

  Oh, finally. A small fold of cloth wrapped with a leather tie. This must be it.

  I opened it, eyeing the tools tucked carefully inside. Like I knew what I was looking at. It seemed to be a weird pick tool and some other stuff. Aw, crap, no instructions. Well, I guess if you’re in the market for one of these kits, you probably already know how to use it. Or maybe you didn’t know how to read.

  I rewrapped the kit and brought it back to the front. “Okay, this should work.” I hoped.

  The clerk pushed his magazine aside to punch in the code on his PC. “That’ll be…fifty-five dollars.”

  “Man, seriously?” The high price of crime. This was highway robbery. But since I was desperate, I grabbed my debit card from my purse.

  “Hey, do you have a pen to sign the receipt when it pops out?” he asked, picking at his back tooth with a fingernail. “Mine’s out of ink.”

  I dug my hand into my pocket, my finger touching something hard and cold as I swiped the card down the narrow strip. A jolt of electricity ran through every ner
ve in my body, and I started shaking uncontrollably. The entire floor went black as the lights went out, and darkness swallowed me whole.

  * * *

  “Hello? Hey, you okay? Don’t make me do CPR on you, lady,” I heard a guy’s voice say, his rumbling tone piercing through the fog in my head.

  Groaning, I opened my eyes. My entire backside was icy cold. I saw a guy’s face peering intently down at me, his hair flopping in his eyes. Up behind his head was the tiled, water-stained ceiling. Okay, I had to be on the floor, hence my freezing ass. And the back of my head ached to beat the band.

  “What happened?” I mumbled, trying not to move. My stomach lurched as the headache roared on.

  His eyes bugged out of his head. “It was crazy. You should have seen it. For some reason, the power completely went out. I think it must have electrocuted you, because you went flying across the room.

  “Look,” he continued, holding up a strand of my hair, “the ends are smoking.”

  Head still in a bit of a fog, I blinked rapidly then peered at the tendrils of smoke rising from the tip.

  Oh my God, Mr. Intuitive was right. I’d been fried. The last thing I remembered was grabbing for a pen in my right pocket while I’d swiped my debit card.

  I gingerly sat up, cradling my head in one hand, and patted my left pocket where the pen and paper lay nestled. Then, the reality of the accident came rushing to me in a horrifying, unreal blur.

  I must have reached into the wrong pocket. The one holding the—

  Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no. This was bad. This was really bad. This was astronomically, horrifically bad.

  I got up as quickly as possible, fighting the slight wave of dizziness in my head. “I need to go,” I said, a frantic edge in my voice.

  “Are you sure you’re okay to leave?” the clerk asked. “You took a pretty big jolt.”