by Pab Sungenis
Watch? What about a watch? I had a watch. I painfully pulled myself toward consciousness.
“BOB! YOUR SIGNAL WATCH IS GOING OFF!”
It was Rick. That’s right; he was in the base with me. So were Tommy and Sarah. Memories of the beer came flooding back, and it all made sense. Now I knew why people coming off a bender say they’ll never drink again.
Wait. My watch was going off? That was bad. It contains a special hypersonic signaling device, just like the other sidekicks and all of the members of the Justice Federation carry. An emergency signal sent from Federation HQ, or from a hero in trouble, would make everyone’s device beep and vibrate like a cell phone but much louder and more persistent. The signal devices all tie in with the network of teleporters each member keeps in their base (and a few other safe locations), so when they were activated, we could all be zapped to a specific place. In short, a signal watch (or other accessory, like Sarah’s necklace) going off meant, “trouble.” In long, it meant, “get your ass here immediately.”
“Shit.” I scrambled to turn it off. “Did I manage to activate it somehow in my sleep? Is everyone going to swarm here, thinking someone’s attacking? How can I … ?”
“You didn’t set it off,” Tommy said. “Because if you had, ours would be going nuts, telling us to get here.”
“Well, maybe because you’re already here, the things didn’t bother … ” Slowly but relentlessly, like a snail trying to eat a rhino, the key phrase in Tommy’s remark came into focus. “Wait. Yours isn’t going off?”
“Nope. Rick?”
“Not mine, either. Sarah?”
“Not a peep.”
“That’s weird. Anything important enough to summon one of us would have to be so big that everyone would be needed, especially if they felt the need to summon a sidekick. And if they were calling in an inactive sidekick, it must be something just north of the end of the world as we know it.” I shook my watch. “You think it’s malfunctioning?”
“Can we take that chance? Maybe ours are malfunctioning, and yours isn’t,” Rick said. “Can your teleporter take all of us, just in case? If our signals can’t tell it where to send us … ”
“This place is one of the Federation’s emergency evacuation points, in case everyone needs to bug out of somewhere in a hurry. The whole room is a teleporter pad.” I ran to the closet where my Squire costume was; Uncle Jack had kept one here in good condition, even after I’d stopped adventuring. I pulled on the bulletproof, chainmail shirt (another of Uncle Jack’s wonderful creations) and grabbed my spare boots, since Rick had apparently never returned the ones he’d had Tommy borrow.
I spun around. “You guys have your costumes—” Tommy and Sarah had already changed, and Rick was lacing his boots. Changing clothes lightning fast is essential in this business.
“Grab hold, everyone.” Shadow grabbed one of my arms, Zipper, the other. Pandora—in a move I would’ve been able to appreciate if it weren’t for the chance we’d all be teleporting into a battle scene—threw her arms around my waist. “Here we go.”
I pushed the “emergency teleport” button on my watch, and the teleporter activated. The four of us were pulled apart, atom-by-atom, and flung across the space-time continuum to whatever location had been encoded into the activation signal.
Yes, it hurts as much as it sounds, but it’s over quick, and you get used to it after a while. Besides, it did have one nice side effect—it didn’t transmit the toxins and other hangover crud flowing through my bloodstream, which meant my head wouldn’t be in total agony when we landed. Well, unless some bad guy hit me over the head with a telephone pole or something.
Empty Chairs at Empty Tables
It took a moment or two to get oriented after I was slammed back together. I spun around, taking in the scene, listening for explosions or screaming—anything that might give me a clue about where the vicious battle between a bunch of heroes and one of our many nemeses was. But the only thing I heard was a soft, whooshing hum. As my brain caught up with my senses (not always an easy thing to do) our location, and situation, became clearer.
We were in a huge, empty hall constructed of some kind of industrial metal but with no obvious bolts or welding joints. It looked as if the metal had grown into this huge, cavernous room. Along the walls stood a row of statues and mannequins with bright, garish costumes and a series of trophies mounted between them. It was a display that left a very lasting impression, and I recognized it with barely a glance.
“What’s going on?” Tommy asked. “Where’s the battle?” He might be the fastest teen in the world, but he wasn’t always the swiftest, if you get what I mean.
“There is no battle, Zipper,” Rick said, relaxing from his battle-ready stance. “There’s no emergency. We’re in HQ.”
“HQ? As in the headquarters of the Justice Federation?”
“Got it in one.”
“I don’t understand,” I mused. “Why have we been summoned to HQ?”
“We haven’t been summoned to HQ, Squire,” Rick said with a hint of a sneer in his voice. “You have.”
“Me? Only me?”
Of course,” Sarah said. “That’s why only your watch went off. They summoned you, and we wound up coming along for the ride.”
“But why would they summon me? And why only me?”
“Maybe,” Rick said as he pointed to the large double doors at the end of the hall, “you ought to go and ask them.”
“Don’t you mean ‘we’?”
Rick shook his head. “It’s you they want. They didn’t know we were with you last night, so they couldn’t have wanted all of us.”
“No way. We’re all going. I’m not walking in there alone. Hell, I’ve never gone into that room alone.” The three of them glanced at each other, then nodded. We walked the rest of the way to the doors together, and I lifted my palm to the big sensor beside the doors. It scanned me, confirmed my identity, and beeped softly. The doors slid apart, slowly and silently, like they were about to reveal the super prize on some cosmic game show. As soon as the opening was wide enough, I lifted my head high (whatever I was walking toward, I was going toward it with dignity, thank you) and walked through.
***
You ever see one of those old “nuclear war between America and Russia” movies from the 1980s? The ones that have those gigantic NORAD rooms deep underneath a mountain with zillions of high-definition screens showing maps of every inch of the earth and giant computer terminals? Imagine a huge, round space with three of those rooms crammed together, all assembled by an architect with a fetish for polished chrome and an IT guy whose cousin owned a discount warehouse stuffed with flat-panel touch screens. HQ was even buried deep underneath a mountain, although only Paragon (who hollowed out the space and put in its teleporter system working from Uncle Jack’s blueprints) knew exactly which mountain. That should give you an idea of what HQ was like, but it still isn’t the whole picture.
Down in the very center of the sunken room was a huge, round table with seven large chairs. All but one was occupied by members of the Justice Federation; the empty chair belonged to the Scarlet Knight.
“Squire,” Paragon said in that “Zeus up on the mountain” voice he liked to use. “Welcome. Please, come down.”
As I walked down the winding ramp, the heroes in the pit realized I wasn’t alone.
“Pandora. Shadow. Zipper,” a regal, female voice hissed. “We don’t remember summoning you.”
“They were with me when my signal watch went off, Auntie Clytemnestra. We had no way of knowing it wasn’t an emergency, so they came along in case there was trouble. They meant no disrespect.”
“And I assume you mean no disrespect by calling me ‘Auntie’ when we’re conducting official business?”
I blushed, but Morgaine came to my defense. “Oh, relax, Clytemnestra. The boy may not have a father or mother, but he’s got more uncles and aunts than he knows what to do with. All the kids do. I don’t think any of
us should be offended if they want to show affection when there are no civilians around. Please, Bobby,” Morgaine gestured to the empty space, “come on down here. We want to talk with you. You others come on down, too. You should all be here for this. If that’s all right with everyone, that is?”
Morgaine has a voice like chocolate-coated gummy bears and could prove very persuasive when she wanted, even without using her magic, so what little resistance there was to the other sidekicks joining in melted quickly.
I made my way toward the table, and the others followed close behind. As I stepped off the ramp, Morgaine ran up and gave me a gripping hug. She wasn’t the biggest woman in the world, but she compensated for it in her power and ferocious emotions. Annoy her enough, and nothing would save you. And if she wanted to show affection, she would. Her arms barely wrapped around my back, and her head didn’t quite rest on my shoulder, but she squeezed so tight I nearly wound up an inch taller. “Bobby, I’m so sorry. How are you holding up?”
“I’m okay, Auntie Morgaine.” I don’t usually call her that, but after her touching plea for the term of endearment, it would’ve been beyond rude not to, and remember what I said about annoying her. “I’m still a little shaken up, but the gang here’s been doing their best to pull me through.”
“Remember, we’re all here for you.” She sighed and released her grip. The blood slowly flowed back to my head, so I carefully lifted my eyes and was face to face with Mr. Zip.
“She’s right, Bobby.” He also embraced me, but fortunately, it was just a very solid “I love you, man” type of macho hug, which I didn’t mind as much as Morgaine’s python grip. “We can only imagine what you’re going through, and we all want to help in any way we can.”
“Jack Horner meant a lot to all of us,” Paragon butted in, barely rising from his chair, “but he was so much more to you. We’re all grieving, but your loss goes far beyond ours.”
Clytemnestra raised a hand in a dainty, but very authoritative, way. “I hate to destroy a tender moment, but we did call Bobby here on business.”
Paragon cleared his throat, which immediately commanded everyone’s attention. “You’re right, Clytemnestra. Would everyone please take their seat? Bobby, that includes you.”
I took a moment to make sure my ears hadn’t gone on strike, forcing my brain to rely on my nose or another body part that wasn’t good at interpreting sound. “I’m sorry? You want me to sit at the table? I’m not exactly in the same league.”
“That,” Mister Mystery said in that raspy half-hiss he thinks sounds intimidating but in truth sounds like pouring rock salt into a food processor, “is precisely why we called you here.” In his day job as Dr. Lawrence McBride, Mystery often needs to speak to people in a diplomatic, reassuring manner. I’d always thought the way he spoke to people while in his hero costume was his way of overcompensating for that soft, fluffy demeanor his secret identity demanded.
“Please, Bobby,” Paragon insisted, motioning to Uncle Jack’s old chair.
“Dude!” Rick whispered. “Do it! When are you going to get this chance again?”
Once I was finally sure this was real, and not just an extension of a weird hangover dream, I slowly slid into the empty chair.
It was comfortable. No, scratch that. It went beyond comfort. The chair molded to my body so well that for all I knew I was just hovering there. It made it easy to focus on what was being said to and about me.
“Squire, the six of us have been talking a lot the past few days.” Ah, using my hero name. He couldn’t have done a better job of signaling to me that what he was about to say wasn’t coming from my Uncle Hank, but from the head of the Justice Federation, and that he wasn’t speaking to Bobby Baines, but to the Scarlet Knight’s sidekick. “The death of Jack Horner is a personal tragedy for us all, but it’s an even bigger tragedy for Harbor City and the Justice Federation itself.”
“I don’t understand. What are you trying to say Uncle … excuse me, Paragon?”
“The biggest problem with secret identities happens when a hero dies. Whichever name the hero is buried under, be it Jack Horner or Scarlet Knight, pretty soon people put two and two together. Everyone in Harbor City has probably already noticed the Knight hasn’t been out patrolling the past couple of nights, and the next time the entire Justice Federation has to deal with an emergency, someone is going to notice there are only six of us.”
“Not only that,” Clytemnestra interrupted again, “but in the thick of a fight, it would leave us a man down. We can’t afford that.”
The gang behind me traded a few muffled whispers. It seemed they already knew what was going on, which annoyed me.
“Once people realize both Jack Horner and the Scarlet Knight have disappeared, someone is going to figure out they were the same person. We really don’t want that to happen.”
“Why not?” I honestly couldn’t understand the reasoning. “Uncle Jack’s dead. What’s going to be so bad if someone figures out he—”
“What’s going to be so bad,” Prism practically yelled (boy, could she be loud when she wanted to), “is the people who have a grudge against the Knight and Squire—and I’m sure you’re aware there are a lot of them—will have new targets to take their anger out on. They’ll go after your Uncle Jack’s factories and offices. Anything even remotely connected to him will have a giant bull’s-eye painted on it for every half-pint super villain looking to make his bones. A lot of innocent people could be hurt or even killed.”
“Not to mention,” Morgaine said in that smooth, reassuring, yet terrifying voice of hers, “they’ll come after you.”
“Me? Won’t they be coming after me already?”
“They’ll be coming after the Squire,” Paragon said softly. “But if they connect the dots about your Uncle Jack, then they’ll come after Bobby Baines.”
“I see.”
“I’m not so sure you do,” Mystery hissed. “They’ll take out the mansion, go after you at school. When you go off to college, they’ll probably take out your dorm. It’s the reason most of us maintain secret identities in the first place. Including, I might remind you, you yourself.”
“So.” I squirmed (which wasn’t easy in a chair this comfy). “What choice do I have? Are we looking at some kind of Sidekick Protection Program? Do I have to go underground?”
“Not exactly.” Paragon fumbled for a moment. “The easiest way to solve all the problems we’ve mentioned, and ensure the safety of the people of Harbor City, is to make sure it was only Jack Horner we buried yesterday and not the Scarlet Knight. The Scarlet Knight has to live on.”
More whispers from the gang. I’d finally figured out what was going on, too, but I wasn’t so sure I believed it.
Paragon and the other heroes stood. It was more than a little unnerving having them all stare down at me.
“Robert Baines.” Paragon switched to his voice-of-God tone. “It is my privilege to inform you, that for meritorious service and heroism, the Justice Federation has voted to extend to you an offer of membership, and requests you accept this membership under the name of Scarlet Knight.”
Big Shoes
As soon as I’d recovered from the shock of being asked to join the Justice Federation, the official meeting dissolved into a proper party. The formal atmosphere was replaced by the warm camaraderie of old friends. Except the heroes were on one side, and the sidekicks were on the other. Sort of like getting an extended family together for Thanksgiving dinner.
The problem for me was that this year the grown-ups had decided the time had come for me to sit at the big table, but I still felt like I belonged back in the kitchen with the other kids around the card table.
Could you blame me? I had so little in common with the other heroes, especially when it came to actual crime fighting. Outside of Uncle Jack, most of the time I’d spent on the hero front was alongside the other sidekicks. They were the ones I worked with, fought with, and hung out with, when we weren’t taking down villa
ins who weren’t worth calling in the big guns. Heck, they were my friends.
It was Prism who finally broke the ice, crossing over to our side of the room while I was deep in a discussion with Rick about which bands at the top of the charts sucked the least. “I wanted to be the first to give you my congratulations, Bobby. I’m so proud of you, and I know Jack would have been, too.”
Her interruption gave me an idea. I nodded toward Rick, who got the hint and excused himself to go grab another soda.
“Aunt Phoebe,” I switched to her civilian name, “can I have a word with you? About a professional matter?” I wrapped my arm around her shoulders, gently guiding her out of earshot of the others (well, at least of those with normal hearing). She gave me her serious smile—the one designed to reassure you while still letting you know she was concerned—and followed my lead.
“‘Aunt Phoebe?’ You don’t call me that often, Bobby.”
“Well, now that I’m supposedly your peer, do you want me to keep calling you ‘Miss Penobscot’? That just doesn’t seem right.”
“You could call me ‘Prism.’ But I guess you want to talk to me as your social worker instead of as a superhero?”
“A little of both, I guess.”
“Well, let’s see what I can do.”
***
A number of private rooms had been built into headquarters, providing the heroes with places to get away for meetings, quiet moments, and maybe a quick nap before going out and saving the world for the third time that week. Aunt Phoebe led me down a corridor and pointed me toward an automatic door much like the ones that had let me out of the hall and into the inner sanctum, but much smaller. “Go ahead,” she whispered. “Open it.”
It took me a moment to realize what she was talking about. I put my palm to the sensor, a beep sounded, and the door slid open. I looked at her, and she nodded for me to step through first. So I did.
The room wasn’t huge, but it was good-sized. About the size of my bedroom at the mansion and probably bigger than the dorm room I would (hopefully) find myself in seven months down the road. It was spartan but not uncomfortable. It had a bed with a mattress that seemed to be made of the same super-comfy stuff as the chairs at the big table, a desk, a chest of drawers, bookshelves, and a little alcove with a sink and shower. There was probably a toilet hidden in there somewhere too.