The Nameless Hero

by Lee Bacon

  Sophie was standing beside me, watching her dad attempt to make conversation with my parents. It wasn’t the first time they’d met. Captain Justice and the Dread Duo had fought each other plenty of times over the years. And then—once they’d discovered that their kids hung out together—the three of them had formed some sort of unspoken truce.

  But now there were cameramen around. And that weird fuzzy microphone hanging over them. And in the past, whenever cameras were focused on Captain Justice and the Dread Duo, it was because they were trying to kill each other.

  My mom kept glancing at the cameras like they were going to bite her. Dad looked like he wanted to swat the fuzzy microphone out of the air like a volleyball.

  “I think my parents are worried about what’ll happen to their reputation,” I said. “It’s been a while since their last evil scheme. I’m not sure how the rest of the supervillain community will like seeing them chat with Captain Justice.”

  “Sounds like Hangin’ with Justice might be worth watching after all,” Sophie said with a smile.

  We were in Smoothie Sensations, traveling back up to the surface of the earth. After meeting with my parents and Brandy, we’d found everyone else where we’d left them. Gavin and Multiplier still locked in the holding cell. Trace and Elliot standing guard outside. Except there’d been a new guest at the party: Captain Justice’s robot butler, Stanley. Captain Justice had reached headquarters by drilling half a mile into the earth in a custom-made pod that only Stanley could operate. They’d left the pod in headquarters to hitch a ride with us and make sure we made it back to the surface safely. On the way, Gavin had guided us to the room where Vex was keeping his hostages—a dozen doctors, scientists, and engineers who looked like they hadn’t slept in weeks.

  And now there we were. Superheroes and supervillains. A reality-TV camera crew. A bunch of skittish men and women in lab coats. And not one but two robot butlers.

  “I bet Stanley and Elliot have a lot to talk about,” Sophie observed, looking across the crowded smoothie shop at the two of them.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” I said.

  Stanley was tall and slim, dressed in a spotless black jacket and matching bow tie. Next to him, Elliot looked even more like a trash can than usual.

  “Do you perform all the driving duties for the Dreads as well?” Stanley asked in his precise electronic voice.

  “Mrs. Dread not let me near the caaaaaar since I try to eat the bummmmper,” Elliot slurred.

  “I see.” Stanley ran a silver hand along the lapel of his jacket. “And I presume you do all the cooking?”

  “I maked meat loooaaaaf, but the kitchen catched fiiiire.”

  “I can’t believe he saved your life,” Milton said. He and Miranda were standing a few feet away, making smoothies.

  “A few more strawberries,” Miranda suggested.

  Milton dumped a scoopful of frozen strawberries into the blender, added some ice, and hit the button marked DELUXE.

  Once the smoothies had been poured, Miranda handed me a cup. “So you got Elliot’s attention by ringing some kind of a bell?”

  “The Liberty Bell,” I said, thinking back to the way he’d burst into the tanning salon. “I guess it’s a good thing my parents kept Elliot after all.”

  The TV crew made their way in our direction. All of a sudden, the boom mic was hanging between the four of us. Cameras circled like giant insects.

  My shoulders tightened. How were we supposed to have a normal conversation now? I reminded myself that it wasn’t me that people would be watching on their TVs. It was the Nameless Hero. Along with Supersonic, Firefly, and Prodigy—four fifths of the Alliance of the Impossible.

  The only one missing was nFinity. It was still strange to think that he was gone. Vanished into the smoke with Phineas Vex. Nobody was more shaken by his betrayal than Sophie. In her eyes was a mixture of sadness and disappointment at what he’d done.

  The TV crew seemed to be having a stifling effect on all of us. Hopefully they’d cut this scene. I’d feel sorry for anyone who tuned in to see four junior superheroes just standing around, sipping their smoothies.

  When Milton finally spoke up, he was like a different person. Maybe he was nervous, or maybe he just wanted to seem especially heroic for the cameras. Either way, he puffed out his chest and spoke in this weird extra-loud voice.

  “Well, that sure was a thrilling adventure we had, pals!”

  Milton gestured with his arms grandly, like he was giving a speech to an auditorium full of people, not chatting with a few friends. He glanced at one of the cameras, cleared his throat, then continued:

  “We faced many setbacks and … er—nearly got killed by some robotic lunch ladies, but in the end we prevailed.”

  I could see Sophie struggling to keep a straight face. Miranda looked like she was on the verge of laughing too.

  Strangely enough, this was almost what I’d imagined my summer would be like. At least in some ways. Hanging out with friends. Staying up way past my bedtime. Getting brain freeze from drinking my smoothie too quickly.

  I just had to try to ignore the fact that I was being filmed by a reality-TV crew while wearing shiny tights. Or that the smoothie shop was actually a secret elevator carrying us from an underground facility. And of course, my best friend had suddenly started acting like some kind of mini Captain Justice.

  So, not exactly what I’d had in mind.

  “Let us raise our smoothies!” Milton boomed, lifting his cup. “In celebration of good triumphing over evil. And to being such super friends. Get it—super? And of course, vanquishing our foe, even though he had a really amazing robotic suit with a built-in hologram bazooka—”

  Sophie jabbed him with her elbow.

  “Anyway, cheers,” Milton completed.

  I raised my cup, and so did the others.

  “Cheers!”

  I stepped through the front door of Smoothie Sensations and into the parking lot. Overhead lights glowed in the darkness. Scientists and doctors milled around, looking relieved to be above ground again. It was past two in the morning, but my mind still buzzed with leftover adrenaline. I guess Captain Justice’s armored SUV was still in the shop, because I caught sight of his black limousine nearby.

  “What should we do with these two?” Mom asked, nodding toward Multiplier and Gavin, who were shackled in a pair of my dad’s titanium handcuffs.

  “I’ve already notified the authorities of their capture,” Captain Justice said. “The FBI is waiting for me to drop them off at the local courthouse. Perhaps it’s better if you don’t come along for that part.”

  “You might have a point,” Dad said. “I believe we’re still near the top of that pesky Most Wanted list.”

  Captain Justice shoved Gavin and Multiplier into the back of his limo. “Don’t get used to this,” he said to them. “After tonight, you two won’t be riding in one of these for a long time.” He turned to Multiplier. “And if you even think about cloning yourself, there won’t be anything left for you to multiply. Got it?”

  Multiplier nodded dejectedly. Gavin wasn’t planning to go out so quietly, though.

  “All I wanted to do was put a team together again!” he hollered. His eyes flashed wildly over the parking lot until they settled where I was standing next to Sophie, Miranda, and Milton. “I gave you everything! A state-of-the-art facility! Professional training! Working with Vex was the only way. Without me, you would be nothing! I made you FAMOUS!”

  His speech came to an end when Captain Justice slammed the door shut.

  “Is your Gyft still disabled?” I asked Miranda.

  She nodded. “Yep. Why?”

  “I was just thinking—if you had your superpowered intuition back, you might know whether we were ever going to see each other again.”

  “Oh, I don’t need my Gyft for that.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “My mom already signed me up for school in Sheepsdale.” Miranda smiled. �
��I’ll probably have to travel to auditions on weekends, and my mom’s already looking for tutors who can work with me after school on kickboxing and mind reading.”

  I chuckled. “Typical extracurricular activities.”

  After excusing myself from the other kids, I made my way toward Brandy, who was standing alone in the glow of an overhead lamp.

  “Crazy night, huh?” I said.

  An exhausted smile passed across Brandy’s lips. “You could say that.”

  “Will you and Trace be okay? I mean, now that Gavin’s going to jail?”

  “We’ll be fine. Won’t be the first time a superhero team falls apart on us.” All of a sudden, Brandy got very serious. She peered down at me like she was searching my face for clues. “Do you remember what Gavin said about the headquarters? That it wasn’t originally intended for training superheroes?”

  “Yeah. Gavin said Vex was going to use it for his secret lair or something.”

  “Well, when I was searching Gavin’s office, I stumbled across some of Vex’s old documents from before the headquarters had been built. There was a specific reason why Vex wanted his lair in Sheepsdale.”

  I glanced across the parking lot at Tantastic, reminded of the futuristic facility a half mile beneath my feet. From the moment our bus first came to a stop in this parking lot, it had struck me as strange that the Gyfted & Talented headquarters was located in Sheepsdale, so close to where I lived. It had seemed like an impossible coincidence.

  “Really? What is it?” I asked.

  Brandy hesitated, as if considering whether to go on. “There’s something here,” she said finally. “Something in Sheepsdale that Vex was after.”

  “What?”

  “A weapon of some kind. Vex seemed to think it held the key to taking over the world.”

  I looked around, confused. “And he thought he could find that in a shopping center?”

  Brandy didn’t crack a smile. “I wasn’t able to find out any more. But I thought you should at least know. Now that Vex has taken his new form, he’ll most likely be looking for it again.”

  And that wasn’t the only thing he’d be searching for. My mind pitched back to the smoky corridor and Vex’s parting words. I’ll find you, Joshua Dread. Soon, I’ll find you!

  “I know this must be difficult.” Brandy brought her hand down on my shoulder. “But just remember—you’re a lot stronger than you think.”

  I was still trying to figure out what she meant by that when Brandy turned to go. “Goodbye, Joshua. And good luck.”

  The air shimmered, and Trace appeared beside her. Instead of his usual smirk, he actually shot me a halfway sincere-looking smile. “So long, kid.”

  And the two of them walked off into the hazy night together.

  34

  We made up our minds to stay in Sheepsdale. It wasn’t an easy decision. With an invincible bionic billionaire out there looking for me, my parents’ first instinct was to pack our belongings, change our identities, and start a new life somewhere else. But the more we thought about it, that began to seem like an even bigger risk. If there really was some kind of superweapon in Sheepsdale, we couldn’t let Vex get to it.

  And there was also Captain Justice. Even though my parents had a complicated relationship with the superhero (and that was putting it lightly), we all shared a common enemy: Phineas Vex. When the time came to face Vex again, we knew we would only stand a chance of defeating him if we stuck together.

  “I can’t believe we’re actually staying in Sheepsdale because of Captain Justice,” Dad said, shaking his head in wonderment.

  Whatever the reason, I was just happy to be staying. For the first time in my life, I had a real group of friends. Milton, Sophie—and now Miranda. And with Gyfted & Talented coming to an early end, we had the rest of the summer to spend together.

  Back at home, I was hoping everything would settle back to normal. Or as close to normal as possible when you live with a couple of supervillains. But there was just one little thing standing in the way of that.

  I was still the most famous kid on earth.

  After failing to show up for a few dozen of the interviews and photo shoots that Gavin had scheduled for me, websites and TV shows started asking, “What’s happened to the Nameless Hero?”

  All kinds of crazy rumors circulated on the Internet. I tried to ignore them, which wasn’t so easy when Milton kept emailing me links to articles and blog posts. I usually deleted them right away, but I couldn’t help catching the headlines:

  Did the Nameless Hero Perish in a Volcanic Eruption???

  Superkid Dragged Away to Ultra-Private Mental Institution for Celebs!!!

  Nameless Spotted in Cancun, Sunbathing in Sombrero

  Super Scoop ran another cover story about me the next week. Underneath a photo of me posing in my uniform and mask was a bold caption:

  WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO THE NAMELESS HERO

  Tiffany Cosgrove Investigates

  “You’re never gonna believe what she wrote!” Milton flapped the magazine in my face.

  I’d gone over to his house to play video games—not read Super Scoop. I wasn’t too interested in finding out what Cosgrove had to say about me this time. But Milton wouldn’t let the subject drop.

  He flipped the magazine open. “It says here you were kidnapped!”

  “Oh, that’s a new one.” I rolled my eyes. “And who do they think kidnapped me?”

  “The Dread Duo!”

  I dropped my controller. “They think that … my parents kidnapped me?”

  “Yeah. Except—well … they don’t know that you’re you. Or that your parents are your parents. The article says an eyewitness spotted the Nameless Hero in the backseat of a Volvo that was being driven by the Dread Duo. I guess they figured you were their hostage.”

  “It must’ve been the night we drove back from Smoothie Sensations. We were all so tired—nobody bothered changing out of their uniforms.”

  “It gets worse from there.” Milton read out loud from the article: “ ‘An inside source claims that the rest of the Alliance of the Impossible has gone into hiding, afraid that they’ll be next to fall victim to the nefarious plans of Dr. Dread and his despicable wife, the Botanist. For now, it seems that the Nameless Hero has gone from five-star hotels to an extended stay in the Dreads’ dungeon of doom.’ ”

  “I can’t believe they can print this stuff!” I reached for the magazine.

  “Hey, this is a collector’s edition!” Milton held the copy of Super Scoop protectively. “Anyway, it’s not all bad. There’s this other article that lists overrated superheroes. And they ranked nFinity as the most overhyped supercelebrity of the year.”

  nFinity. Nobody had heard or seen anything from him since the night he’d betrayed us. According to Super Scoop, he was hiding out from my parents (and was overrated). But we knew the truth. He was out there somewhere with Phineas Vex. And I had a bad feeling we’d be seeing both of them again someday.

  A few days later, a commercial on TV caught my attention.

  “Tune in for the special two-hour premiere of Hangin’ with Justice this Thursday!” The voice blared from the TV’s speakers while images of Captain Justice flashed on the screen. “In a very special first episode, we reveal what went down between Nameless Hero, nFinity, and the rest of the Alliance of the Impossible.”

  I guess I shouldn’t have been too surprised. The camera crew had been there on the night Captain Justice had saved us from Vex. It’s not like they were going to just throw that footage away. But I wasn’t sure whether I actually wanted to watch any of it. The entire experience had been nerve-racking enough the first time. Did I really want to go through it again on TV?

  “Of course you should!” Milton exclaimed when I told him I was having doubts. “It’s our reality-TV debut!”

  “But we already know what happens. Don’t you think that’ll be boring?”

  “This is reality TV. Nothing’s boring. Besides, there’s somet
hing else you should probably know.…” Milton hesitated, examining his fingernails.

  “What?”

  “I kind of—uh … told Sophie and Miranda that we could watch it at your place.”

  At first, I assumed Milton was joking. He knew about my parents’ no-visitors policy. Just because he’d been allowed in my replica bedroom didn’t mean my parents were going to let him see the real thing.

  But Milton kept insisting, and so later that day I brought it up with my parents. And big surprise—they weren’t too thrilled about the possibility.

  “What happens if one of your friends wanders down into the basement where I keep the zombies?” Mom asked in an exasperated voice. “It would be a little awkward to explain to another set of parents that their kid’s brain has been eaten during your playdate.”

  “First of all, nobody says ‘playdate’ anymore,” I began. “And we can warn them ahead of time about the basement.”

  Mom shook her head. “Still. I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  “It’s only Milton, Sophie, and Miranda. They know about you guys already. They’ve met you guys. So what’s the big deal if they see where we live?”

  “Why can’t you do it at one of their houses?” Dad asked.

  “Milton’s mom is hosting her book club that night. Captain Justice and Stanley are going to some kind of big party for the premiere of the show, so we can’t do it there. And Miranda’s still getting moved into her place.”

  Mom and Dad considered this for a moment. Even though I hadn’t really wanted to watch the episode to begin with, I was crossing my fingers that they’d say yes. The more I thought about it, the more unfair it seemed that my parents had never allowed me to have a single friend over. No sleepovers. No after-school video games. Nothing.

  This was a chance to change all that. A way to feel like a normal kid with normal parents (even if we did have to warn my friends about the zombies beneath the floorboards).

  “You weren’t exactly truthful with us about your summer plans,” Dad reminded me.

  “Especially the part about becoming a superhero,” Mom added.