by Jeremy Scott
We crept a few paces very slowly and with surprisingly little noise considering two of us were blind and one was in a wheelchair. It helped that the central hallway of the Freepoint Library was wide, and aside from an information desk in the very center, mostly empty. The main hallway ran approximately 120 feet or so, with various sections of the library—young adult, non-fiction, etc.—in spacious side rooms branching off here and there.
We’d been to the library a few times since moving to Freepoint, and I always enjoyed it. It had a more official, stately feel as a building, with two-story-high ceilings and expensive marble floors. The acoustics reminded me of some of the Smithsonian museums we’d visited on our trip to Washington, DC.
Now that we were actually inside the building, we could hear more noises coming from the southeast corner, including a few muffled voices. James, Henry, and I stood as silently as possible, straining to hear more detail in the far-off noise. Bentley and the others remained outside, hiding in the bushes keeping a lookout in case the bad guys made a break for it.
I took a couple soft steps forward. I could make out male voices only, but there were at least three distinct individuals talking.
If these aren’t SuperSim villains, that means they’re regular criminals, Phillip!
I’m aware! I just want to get close enough to hear a little better.
That’s funny. I don’t want to get any closer at all. I actually wouldn’t mind getting a little further away.
Shut up!
Another crash, only far louder now that we were inside the building. The rooms off the main hall could be quite large, with a patchwork of their own side rooms and hallways. There was no way to tell where inside that section the intruders actually were.
Who would wanna break into the library? What are they doing?! I couldn’t fathom any criminal activity in a place like this that would require something so loud.
Without any warning or indication anything was imminent, I lost my vision completely. It was there one second, then gone the next, replaced by the same black nothing I’d been staring at my entire life.
Henry, what did I do now? Why’d you stop sending me images?
Um … I didn’t, Phillip. The lights just went out.
But why would the lights—
Footsteps. Unmistakable on marble floors such as these, and from the sound of it, coming from the doorway at the end of the hall. Click-clop, click-clop. The heel-then-toe rhythm continued for several paces until it reached a point that had to be near the unmanned information desk. Then … nothing. For a handful of seconds, I couldn’t even hear anyone breathing besides the three of us kids. Usually, I can hear all sorts of things people think are silent.
We were frozen in place partway down the hall but still a good fifty feet or more from the sound of the last footsteps.
Who is that?
How the heck should I know, Henry? Just stay still! Maybe he heard something and came to check on it.
Click-clop, click-clop, click-clop. The steps suddenly picked up where they’d left off … and at a faster pace.
We’re gonna die. Oh my God, we’re all gonna die!!
Calm down, Henry, I’m trying to think.
Click-clop, click-clop, click-clop, click-clop.
Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God. Henry’s tough talk had melted into fearful blubbering in a matter of seconds, and all it took were a few footsteps.
Click-clop, click-clop, click-clop, click-clop. The figure drew closer and closer. I began to think he might walk straight through us, until …
“Stop where you are!”
I wasn’t sure where it had come from. I mean … I knew I was the one who’d said it, but I wasn’t sure from which of the unexplored recesses down inside me it had come. It was a reaction, to be sure, and not born out of rational thinking. The eighty-five pound weakling in me knew better than to challenge unseen adversaries during a break-in. I regretted it as soon as I’d said it, but it was obviously too late.
The footsteps slid to an abrupt stop mid-step, then settled as the unknown figure adjusted to hearing my command.
I honestly didn’t know if it was a man, woman, or werewolf, though I was at least finally close enough to hear the intruder’s breathing. As we stood there exposed in the dark by my actions, my mind began to race through all the terrible individuals this could potentially be in front of us. After all, the SuperSim villains simply wouldn’t be here. This had to be a real bad person of some kind, committing a real crime in a superhero town. And I’d gone from “just scoping things out” to direct confrontation with astonishing speed.
What the hell did you do that for? Henry seethed.
Well, to try and stop him, I guess. It worked, didn’t it?
Well, now what do we do?
Why don’t we just leave? It was James, with a helpful thought that none of us really expected an answer to, at least not from our assailant.
“Because then we’d never have the chance to get acquainted with one another, young James.”
It was a man, and an older one at that, easily over fifty or sixty. His voice was warm and he spoke with confidence. Prim and proper … almost a bit like a British accent, actually.
A quick scratching noise was followed by a bright flash of light, which dulled considerably right away. The light pulsed slightly as the man drew smoke from his pipe. The orange glow illuminated just enough of his face to assure me he was not, in fact, a werewolf.
He puffed a few times while the three of us stood there actively trying to avoid soiling our pants. In addition to surprising us by speaking, he’d also managed to read our minds.
His pipe finally lit, he continued speaking as his right hand shook the match in the air to put it out. “And I do so hate missing the opportunity to meet new people such as yourselves.” He puffed twice more and said, “Shall we have some light, then?”
The hallway lights instantly returned to full strength, blinding us all in the process for a moment—well, blinding Henry at least. When he finally blinked the white spots away, what we saw before us was one of the least scary men I’d ever seen except for the scar.
From top to bottom, a hideous scar split his face, rippling with texture and disgusting detail. It was as though something had cut his face in two, pulled the halves apart by a couple inches, and then froze everything in place. Other than that admittedly large detail, he looked like any other ordinary old man.
He was definitely someone’s grandfather, and he dressed the part, too. A tweed suit, complete with handsome leather patches on the elbows of the jacket. Instead of a tie, there was a scarf with a tiny silver medallion holding it in place. Atop his head sat a hat—also made out of tweed—with a bill in the front and another in the back. Henry would later tell the others the man resembled Sherlock Holmes, but with a mustache and a cane. I had no visual frame of reference for that analogy, but it seemed to help the others kids on the team.
“Now then, the proper way to begin when meeting new people is with the formal introductions. Allow me to begin. My name is Mr. Finch.” He removed his hat, wrapped his cane under his arm, and bowed. “Now, traditionally, you would introduce yourselves to me and bow in return. So why don’t you begin, Mr. Gardner? Or would you prefer to start, Phillip?”
His voice was even and pleasant, not at all threatening in tone. But the intent of his words seemed less than friendly. We were old enough to know he was trying to intimidate us by showing he already knew who we were. And it was working, for me at least.
“You can’t impress me with your tricks. Reading minds is easy.” The cocky side of Henry was back now that he’d gotten a look at his opponent and evidently judged him weak and puny. Henry judged a lot of people to be weak and puny, considering his own appearance.
“It definitely is for me,” Finch replied. He wasn’t boasting, merely stating a fact. “But so are a lot of other things. Like breaking into the Freepoint Library. You know,” he started, pausing briefly to draw more smoke, “
I’ve never seen a more poorly guarded building in all my life.” His arms went out at his sides gesturing to the building’s complete lack of security evidenced all around us. “It’s almost as though the good people of Freepoint don’t believe there’s anything of value here, isn’t it?”
It was true. There were no surveillance cameras, no security guards. There wasn’t even an alarm system.
“We’re here now, though, aren’t we?” Henry bragged.
“My, you are feisty, aren’t you?” He almost sounded impressed. “Well,” he added, clearly wrapping things up, “now that we’ve made our acquaintance with one another, and Mr. Gardner is foaming at the mouth, I’ll be heading back for what I came for. I do have a robbery to commit and evidence to erase. As for you three … I have no idea, but I wouldn’t think it a wise idea to be hanging around a crime scene. Unlike me, you might leave a bit of evidence lying around. We’ll meet each other again soon, I’m sure. I kind of like this town. I think I’ll return.”
“And what makes you think we’re going to just let you go back to what you were doing? What makes you think we won’t stop you and turn you in?” Henry was acting quite cocky, and I wondered if that would change the day we actually had to do the things he bragged about.
Finch smiled the way all adults do when they know something you don’t, and with a wave of his hand said, “Because you’re in Cleveland.”
Wait, what?
Ooph!
I’d been to a lot of places in my young life. Between our many moves and vacations, I’d seen over a dozen states already. But I’d never been to Cleveland. So this trip, unplanned as it was, was at least a milestone of sorts.
We found ourselves in a parking lot for a supermarket. It appeared to have been abandoned for some time. There was a strong city smell in the air—the kind of smell you only get in cities with millions of drivers on the road every day—and it reminded me of New York City.
We were definitely not in Freepoint anymore, and it made sense to assume the old man hadn’t been lying about the destination. We were in Cleveland. The lone car in the lot was empty, though we had plenty of fluorescent light humming above our heads.
Why are they lighting up a parking lot for a business that doesn’t exist anymore?
“What in the heck just happened?!” Henry was freaking out a tiny bit.
“We teleported,” James answered. “Probably to Cleveland, I’d say.”
Henry sputtered, “I don’t even know where Cleveland is!”
“It’s in Ohio,” James answered helpfully.
Henry just screamed.
“He didn’t touch us, though, James,” I protested. “How did he do that?”
“That I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like that before. I’ve never even heard of anything like that.”
A car driving out on the main road slowed as it passed and then turned into the far entrance of the parking lot.
“We’d better get out of here,” I said.
The car turned and slowly drove in our direction, headlights getting brighter by the second.
“Agreed,” Henry said, nodding, as he rolled himself toward James and me.
The driver of the vehicle turned on a tremendously powerful spotlight attached to the window, causing Henry to squint.
Cops!
“James, the Freepoint Circle,” I said sternly, placing my hand on his shoulder. “Go, buddy!”
I heard the officer say through his loudspeaker, “Don’t move!”
But we were already gone.
***
“I can’t believe this is happening!” I’d gone through frustration and anger and had settled firmly into despondence. It was a full-on “woe is me” moment.
The guys and I had gone back to the plaza, found some adults, and breathtakingly told them about what had happened.
The SuperSim had ended while we were in Cleveland, and the teams were beginning to roll back into the center of town. Dad and a few of his protector buddies hightailed it over to City Hall but found nothing.
Dad said that not only did they not find Finch there when they arrived, but there was absolutely zero evidence anyone had been there at all.
Nothing was missing, broken, or out of place.
“Did you smell pipe smoke?” I was grasping at straws, but I needed something to hold onto.
“I don’t know, Phillip. I didn’t have that very specific piece of information when I was investigating. I suppose your man was smoking a pipe?” I’m pretty sure he wanted to strangle me. I had probably embarrassed him with his coworkers.
“Dad, you know that I’m telling the truth, right?”
He said nothing. Without Henry around, I couldn’t see the visual cues that might provide a clue to his true mindset. But there were plenty of audio-based nonverbal signals for me to pick up on. Like the heavy breathing directed down at the floor and the tapping of his finger on his arm.
“Of course we believe you, son.” It was Mom, bringing a round of fresh-baked cookies to the table the way she used to do when Patrick’s team lost a Little League game. “What’s important is that you’re okay.”
“No, Mom,” I blurted, “what’s important is that everyone is gonna think we’re a bunch of liars.”
The chair screeched as she pulled it back from the table. Then she sat down and clasped my hands inside her own.
“Well, Phillip, are you a liar?”
“No!” I was offended she’d felt the need to ask.
“Then get over it.” She let go of my hands, stood up, and headed back to the counter.
I didn’t process what she’d said right away. “What?”
“I said get over it, son,” she called over her shoulder. “Listen, if you want to be a superhero, you’re going to have to get used to the idea of people saying bad things about you. It’s part of the package. You can’t please all of the people all of the time. And you wanna know what’s worse than that? Sometimes you’re actually going to be at fault. Sometimes you’re going to make mistakes, so you’ll have to stand up to the criticism that comes from them.”
“But I didn’t make a mistake, Mom.”
“You didn’t go into an off-limits government building to go snooping around? Because that sounds like a pretty huge mistake right there.” Mother was a conversational ninja, always doling out love with one sentence and a verbal spanking with the next. She’d been setting us boys up and knocking us down since we were toddlers.
“You’re right,” I moaned, because I’d learned long ago that parents want to hear they’re right, even when they’re wrong. “I shouldn’t have gone into the library—but I’m not lying about what we saw in there!” I turned to the parent I was really trying to persuade. “Dad, I swear!”
Dad was still fuming silently in his chair, not having anything nice to say. His rate of breath was noticeably above normal.
“We believe you, son,” Mom said warmly.
That wasn’t so hard, was it?
“But that doesn’t mean everyone else will. From what you’re saying, you did the right thing, right up until you went inside that building instead of calling an adult for help. Let the world think what they want, because I promise you this, Phillip,” she said as she turned and faced me to make sure I was paying attention, “they’re going to anyway.”
“That’s not even close to fair, and you know it.” I was struggling to understand why I had to just accept it and move on. If people were wrong, and I was right, something ought to be done to point it out to them.
“If you’re going to give up when things aren’t fair, then you might as well just not even start down the path in the first place.” She’d started washing the dishes by hand, despite the expensive dishwasher we owned—something that drove my father crazy. “We can’t change everything that’s not fair, Phillip: that’s just not the world we live in.”
I crossed my arms and remained quiet, not wanting to prolong the conversation any more than necessary, particularly si
nce it wasn’t remotely going my way.
“Now go wash up and get ready for bed. It’s way past your bedtime.”
***
I lay on my back on the bed, exhausted but nowhere near sleepy. The metal disc my father had given me—the direct-line emergency beacon—danced in the air above my head. I couldn’t see it, but I pictured what I thought it looked like in my head as I used my powers to twirl it around absentmindedly and flip it end over end. It was something I’d started doing whenever I had trouble sleeping, which seemed to be common lately.
I could hear the usual sounds of Mom and Dad getting ready to go to bed. The TV was the first thing to go, then the lights in the hallway—they were fluorescent and gave off a nice deep hum when they were on, which you never really noticed until they were turned off. Usually my parents would be talking throughout this routine, but tonight they said nothing.
Mom pushed the last chair in under the table, making sure all four chairs were uniform in position, and then I heard two sets of footsteps come down the hallway.
Their bedroom was on the other side of mine, which meant we shared a wall. I crawled out of bed and crept into the closet, leaning my right ear up against the wall.
My hunch was right; they were talking. The voices were pretty muffled, but I could still make out what they were saying.
Mom sounded concerned. “First the kidnappings, and now this?”
There’s been more than one kidnapping? That was news to me.
Mom continued, “Strangers showing up in our town confronting our children?!”
“It’s going to be fine, honey. From Phillip’s description, this guy sounded like an old man … and a charming one, at that. I’m not convinced he’s dangerous.”
“An unknown man with super powers shows up on the night of the first SuperSim and messes with your son’s team, and you don’t think he’s dangerous? What possible harmless reason could he have to do that? And with all this stuff in the news about superheroes … it’s getting too dangerous out there for a mother, John.”