Mic Drop (Cape High Series Book 16)

by R. J. Ross

  "Filmed?" he says blankly before going to the main point, "She's not that powerful--"

  "It doesn't matter that she's not powerful!" Zoe says. "The ones she and her father can affect ARE. You almost died, Max. You almost DIED because one of them got to Aunt Skye. You're constantly surrounded by supers that are strong enough to do some serious damage to you! Usually that's a good thing, but not if there's a chance they can be used as weapons AGAINST you! Even if we equip all of our capes with external power blockers, she can still use others. Even norms can be a problem if there are enough of them."

  "Norms," he repeats.

  "Yes, norms, or do you really think you could take on an army--no, don't answer that," she says, groaning as she sees his face. "I'm just going to go in and get her to expose herself as a cape. Once the world knows what she is, she'll be under our law instead of theirs. Under our law, we can arrest her for aiding and abetting an escaped convict. That way you can do your graduation gig without worrying about Massteria and her plotting some--"

  "Or," he says, "you can partner with me in my plan to lure them both out into the open."

  "What?" she asks.

  "I'm going to use my graduation gig as a lure to get them out in the public. He's already attacked me twice, which means he's targeting me. Add in the big crowd that panders to his abilities, and me taking over the Hall, it's right up his sick little alley. We just need to make sure they find out about it."

  "Do our dads know about this aspect of the plan?" she asks.

  "No, and I wasn't planning on telling them, either," Max says. "There's a good chance it won't do anything and I'll graduate as planned. It's like fishing, really. I could be wasting my time."

  "Hmm..." Zoe says. "Mom?" she asks, looking over at Summer.

  "I think your father should know," she says. "He might be more helpful than you think."

  "I really was planning on doing this myself, you know," Max says, looking a bit irritated.

  "We're going to my dad," Zoe says. "Looks like I don't need the uniform--"

  "Keep it," Max says, "maybe we can work it into the show."

  "Well, I guess it is a bit less generic than my white one," she says.

  "And it's already paid for," Kim says. "Now get over here and we'll finish adding all your belts."

  "How about this," Zoe says, heading for the other belts, "I take these, too, so when I empty one I've got a backup ready to go!"

  "Fine, but no wearing them all at once," Kim says. "I would be laughed out of the super tailor guild."

  ***

  "Before we talk to Dad, you're going to make up with your family--" Zoe says as we head into the apartment building with our bags. I now have a good guy uniform. I only plan on wearing it for a little while, of course, but it still feels wrong to have it at all.

  "Wait, what?" I say.

  "You're going to make up with your little brother and sister," she says. "Tomorrow's the basketball game, remember? You can't just ignore that because you're irritated with them." I watch her until she blushes slightly. "Or do whatever you want," she says. "I've got no say in what you do."

  "Sure you do," I say, "you're my friend. I just don't know what to say to them," I add a bit darkly as I look up the stairs. "She slapped me."

  "I know," she says. "It's hard to keep conversations in this apartment a secret." She reaches up and touches my cheek. "I know it's not going to bruise, I'm sure it didn't even hurt, but I'm still sorry that it happened."

  "It's really hard to ask for forgiveness after that," I point out. "I mean, it's one thing to get hit by a super hero, it's another completely to get hit by your birth mother."

  She wraps her arms around my waist, hugging me tightly. "If anyone can do it, it's you. You're super like that." She pulls back, giving me a look. "And friends hug, got it?" she says defensively. "We're still taking a little break, you know!"

  I let out a laugh as she races up the stairs to her floor, leaving me standing there. After a long moment of fighting with myself, I head for Wendy and John's apartment. It takes me fifteen seconds of just staring at the door before I can force myself to knock.

  I'm going to be the second-in-command of the Hall soon. I can't afford to chicken out when dealing with a handful of norms, related to me, or not.

  "I don't CARE!" I hear Layne shout from inside. "I'm going to the game whether they say I can or not! I worked too hard for this, Mom! I finally got to be a starter!"

  "But Layne--"

  "No! I don't care if it's stupid and lame and I'll never change the world like MAX will, but this is what I do! It's who I am! You can't take that away from me," she finishes, her voice cracking a bit. She's either crying or close to it, and it's all my fault.

  I grab the door handle. The door is locked. I wave a hand, unlocking it with my powers and walking in. "Look, I know I'm not your favorite person right now, but--"

  "This is family business, Max," my birth mother says.

  "And I'm not really family," I finish, saying what everyone is thinking, "but I am the guy that promised to take her to the game."

  "But--"

  "I made a promise," I say, "I'm not going to break it."

  "I didn't make it to our last practice," Layne mutters. "They'll probably bench me, anyway."

  "Not if you get some practice in, now," I say. "I'm sure we can talk them into letting you play."

  "Why do you care? You obviously couldn't care less about us--"

  "If I didn't care about you, I would let the entire world know you're my sibling," I say bluntly. "They could find you and hold you hostage, and then just wait as I never show up."

  "You make no sense sometimes, you know?" she complains.

  "I make all the sense in the super world," I tell her. "Come on, we need to put together two basketball teams."

  "What?"

  "Chet!" I yell at his bedroom. "Come on, kid, you're playing basketball!"

  "I'm not talking to you!" he yells back.

  "You'll be playing with super heroes!"

  The door opens and he peeks out. "Which ones?" he demands.

  "Whichever ones I can get at short notice," I say. "We'll let you take pictures if you don't show anyone."

  He hesitates for all of a second before coming out. "I'm still mad at you," he tells me.

  "Yeah, I know," I say, running a hand through my hair. I shouldn't have done that, I think a second later. Now I've got to wash off the hair gel. I have to get the extra-super strength stuff, because keeping hair spiky when you deal with gravity is NOT easy, trust me. "Now come on, I need to get there before the ones that live with their parents leave."

  I head for the door, only to stop and look at my mother. "I'm working on it," I say, feeling vulnerable. "I promise I am. Soon you can forget you have an extra kid."

  "Max, I don't--" she starts out, only to stop as I just stare at her.

  "I don't need to read your mind to realize it, Wendy," I tell her. "I know that having me as your kid is too overwhelming for you to deal with. But honestly, I need to thank you."

  "I--"

  "Whether you like it or not, you've given me the chance to live. It isn't easy, it isn't always pretty, either, but it's something I value more than you know."

  "It... it isn't overwhelming," she says quietly. "You and I are just... we're not..."

  "The same species?" I offer. "Probably not," I say after a moment of thought. "Dad never did tell me where his powers come from, and an alien race makes sense. It's what Superior was, after all."

  "So your girlfriend's an alien?" Chet asks. "I've seen that movie!"

  "She's a quarter alien," I say, "her grandfather's an alien, her grandmother's Russian, and her mom is American, as far as I can tell."

  "Max," John says, looking at Wendy for a second, "mind if I come watch?"

  "Sure," I say as we head down the stairs. "Hey, Zoe, I'm going to go set Layne up with a basketball game, I'll be back in a minute."

  "Got it," she says from the t
op floor. "Don't take too long, Dad's got something to tell you."

  "Yeah, got it," I say, wondering what's going on. Maybe Nico's figured out what I was planning? He's not stupid, and he knows Massteria better than I do.

  I shrug it off and head down the stairs, seeing and ignoring the confused looks on the others' faces. "We're going to have to convince them that no powers are allowed," I say a bit cheerfully. "Although, honestly, powers are what makes the sports program we've got so fun."

  "I did see a baseball game earlier," John says. "How come the ball burning to ashes didn't count as an out? He DID catch it first."

  "Vinny?" I ask.

  "Is he the boy that turns into fire?"

  "Yeah."

  "Then yeah, Vinny."

  "It's a rule for when any sports equipment is damaged beyond usability," I explain. "If you destroy the ball, the other team gets a home run. If the ball hits the laser wall, it's an automatic out, since the guy that hit it destroyed it. It's to teach them control. Of course, some have more trouble with that rule than others--the Liberty boys have lost more games than the rest of the school combined thanks to that."

  "Do you?" Layne asks me.

  "No, not really," I say as we head out of the protection of the apartments. I automatically scan the area for any onlookers as we head from the apartments to the school. The sports program has already started when we arrive on campus, so I head for Trent, who's splitting everyone up into teams. Soon the school is playing a basketball game with my siblings.

  As I start to leave, though, John grabs my sleeve. "Can we talk?" he asks.

  I hesitate before nodding. "I've got to make it quick, though, I need to go talk with Nico."

  "It shouldn't take long." I nod and lead him into the school building. "I think you need to spend some time with your mother," John says as soon as we step through the door. "I don't think either of you has the best opinion of the other, but that's just because you don't know each other. You're both on the defensive. Nothing will get accomplished that way."

  "Nothing needs to be accomplished, other than I need to capture Massteria and let you four return to the way things were. Besides, Wendy has made it obvious that she doesn't want ANYONE to know me. Or did the 'Surprise, you've got an eighteen-year-old stepson!' not clue you in?"

  "I can't argue with that, but I still think that you want to us--or at least your siblings, even if Wendy didn't want us to know about you. If you didn't, we wouldn't be in this situation, right? I might not come off as the smartest guy around, but I'm not stupid. You said they found out about us because you were checking up on my wife and children, didn't you?"

  "I--"

  "You obviously like my kids."

  "I--"

  "Why don't you come to dinner tonight? We're ordering pizza!"

  I stare at him, sighing inwardly. "Can I get a meat lovers?"

  "Absolutely," he agrees, holding out his hand. "Let's shake on it."

  I take the hand automatically, only remembering that I have hair gel on mine a second later. "Oh, ah, sorry. You might want to wash that off," I say as he looks at his hand.

  "What IS it?" he asks. "I can't move my fingers."

  "Oh, just some hair gel," I say, heading out the door. "I really need to get going. Making Nico wait is a dangerous thing."

  "Max, I seriously can't move my fingers," he calls after me. "Max??"

  ***

  "Tell him," Zoe says five minutes later, standing between me and Nico with her hands on her hips.

  "Me tell him, or him tell me?" I ask, trying to look into her mind. It's crowded with blueprints for all of the tech that surrounds us, so I honestly have no clue what's going on.

  "Dad, tell him," she says.

  "It's not really--" Nico starts out.

  "He was thinking about using your graduation as a lure for Massteria!" she says, waving a hand. On the wall in front of us a website appears with details about the upcoming convention. "He wasn't even going to tell you--"

  "You thought of it, too, huh?" I say to Nico. "So that makes this either harder or easier, doesn't it?"

  Zoe looks from me to him before sighing. "Okay, I should have seen that coming," she says, waving a hand. "Did you make up with your family?" she asks me.

  "Sort of?" I offer. "They invited me to dinner tonight--well, John did."

  "Good," she says. "Now let's get started. You're using the Hall building, right?"

  "I'm going to use the public area of the Hall building and that entire street," I say as a map pops up between us. "From here to here--I'll have it closed, of course, we've already put in the permit requests with the city. Now, let's get to the important part--if Massteria screws up my gig, do I still get to graduate?"

  "NICO!" Skye calls, slamming the door open. "I've come up with my float design! Now build it for me, okay?"

  We all stare at the crayon drawing of a gigantic chicken carrying a rocket launcher.

  "Skye..." Nico says as he takes it.

  "Yes?"

  "This is what you really want?"

  "Yes! Is the rocket launcher too much? I mean, I could go with a grenade instead, since it would look a little like an egg--"

  "The rocket launcher is fine," Nico says. "I can toss in some grenades around it, too. The real question is, why a chicken?"

  "It's not a chicken! It's a phoenix!" she says.

  "Looks like a chicken to me," Nico says. She turns, shoving the picture into Zoe's face.

  "Um... well, I sort of see it?" Zoe offers. "But you don't really have anything in common with a phoenix, Skye. Why not use something that represents you better?"

  "But I like the chicken," Skye says.

  "You just told us it was a phoenix, Skye," Nico points out. "How about you bring up that dinosaur that you and Liz made and ride that?"

  "But that doesn't need a car!" she protests.

  "And you can't drive, so it all works out!"

  "But I was going to make Rocco learn to drive!" she says.

  "We can do that later," Nico says. "Not that a travel type cape needs to know how to drive," he adds dryly.

  "We're going to use him as a getaway driver!" she explains with a brilliant grin.

  "In a car," I say, deadpan.

  "Exactly!"

  "So you can get away from supers that can fly."

  "Uh huh! I've got a DREAM CAR!"

  We look at each other before I venture to ask, "And what car is that?"

  "It's a..." she pauses, making jazz hands for dramatic effect, "1958 Edsel Convertible!"

  I open my mouth, but Nico raises a hand, a thoughtful look on his face. "I like it," he says. "I'll get you one, but only if you use the dinosaur for the parade."

  "YAY!" she says, throwing her arms around him. "This is going to be AMAZING! I want the Edsel to be blue with white racing stripes and chrome hubcaps and--"

  "For someone that can't drive, you sure know a lot about cars," I have to say.

  "I watch lots of car shows!" she says with a bright grin.

  ***

  It's six at night, and I'm floating above the apartment building parking lot, lifting whatever people ask me to. Below, there are several floats being built. Mine is at the center. It's a giant throne on top of the ruins of a bus. I mean, if I'm going to take over the Hall, it calls for some dramatics. I've got an entire pack of mics ready--then again, so do the other villains.

  Jack's float is a massive twisting metal contraption that sort of looks like an evil castle at the moment. It keeps changing when he looks at it, so I don't know what his plan is. Maybe he'll just keep changing it as he goes along. That would be cool. And then there's Ace's float. It's an empty platform.

  "You've got to do SOMETHING with it!" I hear Morgan tell him. "If you spend the entire time relying on your powers, you're going to be too exhausted for the fight that happens afterward."

  "So what? I'll be the first to run, regardless, so I might as well make a good show of it," he says.

  We sto
p, though, as Nico raises a hand. "We've got incoming," he announces, turning and looking at the street. "Did someone order pizza?" he asks.

  "Oh crap," I mutter as I look at the apartment building. "I forgot entirely."

  "Forgot what?"

  "I was supposed to eat dinner with my mother's family," I say, groaning. "I don't have time. I need to get everything ready--I've only got a week--"

  "Hey! I know that guy!" Jack says, breaking out in a grin as the pizza delivery guy comes into view. "That's our usual delivery guy, right? I mean, he actually came back, TWICE! That's as good as regular, right?"

  "I gave them the numbers for our fast food places," Nico says. "Someone stop him for a bit, would you? Rocco should be showing up with the dinosaur soon."

  "I'm on it!" Jack says, jumping on the metal board that comes flying and pulling in front of the van. "Hey!" he says. "You can't come any further!"

  "Are you robbing me again?" the driver demands, getting out and sighing. "EVERY time I've delivered here I had to go back and get new pizzas for the next order."

  "Well, actually I was just going to stop you from getting run over by a dinosaur, but sure, if you're offering! Hand over all the pizza and I'll let you live," Jack says, grinning evilly.

  "Jack!" Nico says. "No robbing the only pizza place in town that still delivers here." He heads for the bus, digging out his wallet. "I'll buy everything in the van," he offers.

  "Deal," the pizza delivery man says, heading to the back. "Good thing I loaded up before coming. But what was that line about a dinosaur? That was a new one."

  "It's just my little sister," Nico says, even as everyone turns and watches the building across the street. A gigantic triceratops skeleton walks out of the shadows, making creaky, cracking noises with each step.

  "I brought my dino!" Skye announces from its back. "Who wants to go for a ride?"

  "I DO!" Carla says, jumping up and down. "Where are Ariel and Doris?"

  "They're coming Friday night," Rocco says, stepping out of the shadow. He stops at the sight of the pizza delivery guy staring with his jaw dropping down. "Do you have ham and pineapple in there?" he asks. "I'm STARVING."