by Jeremy Scott
“The board is still working very hard, honey, meeting with the government to try and figure out the best way to introduce our kind of people to the world. You have to realize how delicate a thing like this is going to be, right?”
“Well, while they fret over wording and who’s going to be the boss of whom, we’re seeing unprecedented criminal behavior in the form of attacks on our people and even in our own town.”
Dad didn’t have a quick reply, but after a moment he gave it a stab. “I think if he wanted to hurt them, he could have, Emily. But he didn’t.”
“I’m worried, John. We’ve lost two NPZ officers, Weatherby got attacked, and now this? Something feels very wrong to me.”
NPZ officers? Was someone kidnapping heroes with no power zone abilities?
“The world is changing, Em,” Dad said, with as soft a tone as I’d ever heard him use. “It’s not going to be for Phillip and Patrick like it was for you and me.”
“Just tell me you’re looking into this.”
“Of course we are, babe. And we’re going to find those missing custodians and bring them back, okay? It’s the agency’s top priority.”
“I know the kidnappings are a priority; I’m talking about our son being threatened.”
“We’ll look into this more too, honey, okay? But we don’t really know what happened in there. We’ve got the word of our son, whom we trust and love, but who can’t see.”
“He can see when he’s with Henry.” I loved hearing Mom come to my defense.
“Sure, but he doesn’t have a lot of experience with it, babe … with visual accuracy or visual memory.”
“So you actually don’t believe him, then?”
“No, I do. I do. One thing I can say is that Phillip’s never been a liar. He’s always been truthful with us. I just don’t know that we can draw a lot of conclusions given two of our three witnesses are blind, and there’s not really any evidence to support what they’re saying.”
“Well, regardless of what you really feel, your son thinks you don’t believe him: I hope you’re happy about that. Would it have killed you to tell him you believed him?”
Dad went silent at that. So silent I thought maybe I’d misheard something, or the conversation had ended. I strained to hear better, smashing my head tighter against the wall.
“You’re right,” he said quietly. “I’ll talk to him.”
“Don’t kiss me,” I heard her say, scolding him. “You can kiss me in the morning, after you’ve talked to him.” Her footsteps trailed off across the room, and I heard the door to their bathroom shut.
Chapter 14: The Library
I woke up that morning with a reputation hangover, instantly filled with embarrassment at the stories that were surely already circulating throughout town. I was more than happy for the distraction when Bentley called to invite me to a spontaneous lunch.
I was out the door and on my way to meet up with Bentley five minutes after I hung up the phone. It was getting cooler, though it was still plenty warm. Fall was moving in fast in this place, and a nice breeze kept the morning sun from being too hot while I walked.
Bentley had invited the rest of the gang too, of course, but only Henry had been able to make it on such short notice. We met up at Jack’s Pizza. I’d eaten their take-out enough to know the food was good, and the downtown location made it central for all of us. The in-person Jack’s experience was even better than the food. They had amazing breadsticks, with a zesty cheesy dipping sauce, as well as a wall of video games. It was kid heaven.
After a quick bite for energy—and three Mountain Dews for Henry—we got ready to leave. Oddly enough, we bumped into Mrs. Crouch on her way in. It was strange seeing her outside of the school environment, particularly in a place like Jack’s, which catered more to people my age than to grandmothers.
“Oh, hi, Mrs. Crouch,” I said, holding the door open for her. She entered, allowing Bentley and Henry to scoot by.
“Hello there, Mr. Sallinger,” she said politely. “Mr. Gardner. Mr. Crittendon. What are you boys up to today?”
“We’re going to be working on ideas for the next SuperSim,” Bentley answered cheerily. “We didn’t fare too well in the first one, you might have heard.”
“Oh, yes. The library,” she said, having obviously heard the story, like everyone in Freepoint.
“I don’t really even mind doing poorly in the SuperSim,” I said. “What I mind is being called liars.”
“If you really want to prove you’re not lying, young man,” she said, just a hair shy of scolding me, “you’re going to have to find some evidence.”
“There isn’t any evidence, though,” I whined. “My dad and the other protectors couldn’t find anything.”
“Oh,” Mrs. Crouch said, with her own brand of sarcasm infusing her words. “Well, I guess there’s no point in looking further, then. I’m sure their five minute late-night investigation was totally thorough.”
The guys and I exchanged looks before I glanced back up at her and said, “Are you saying we should do our own investigation?”
Mrs. Crouch leaned down and smiled. “Not in the least. I’m merely saying … it is a public library.” She looked up and across the street at the library. “Isn’t it?” And with that, she turned and walked away. “Don’t forget your math homework for Monday, boys,” she called over her shoulder.
Henry watched her walking away and then looked over at the library before finally turning his gaze back to Bentley and me.
We hadn’t considered investigating the library on our own—at least I hadn’t. It never crossed my mind that Dad’s buddies would have done a less than thorough job searching for clues. But, in hindsight, they’d come back awfully quick that night. They couldn’t have spent more than a few minutes checking on our story and probably went into it thinking we were selling a whale tale anyway.
“Well, gentlemen, I’d say we have a change in plans,” Bentley said, smiling ear to ear.
***
We stood in the hallway, in roughly the same spot we’d stood the night of the SuperSim, and took it all in. There was a gal at the information desk, speaking with two older ladies. A few other patrons moved through the great hallway, making their way to another section. At the far end of the hall was the main desk, where a small line of customers stood waiting to check out their selections.
The building was cooler this time, a more proper seventy-two degrees, give or take a degree. I was a borderline savant with guessing temperatures, though no one ever seemed to appreciate that gift.
It felt strange, like we’d only just been there hours before, even though it’d been weeks. I could still hear the sound of Finch’s footsteps and the echo of his overly polite voice.
“Come on,” Bentley said, tapping me on the shoulder. “Let’s go see what he was after.”
We made our way through the hall to the door we’d seen opened on the night of the break-in. Henry looked up as we approached it. “‘Resources and References,’ oh man. No wonder I’ve never been in this section before. Nothing but encyclopedias and other boring crap in here.”
“Hey,” Bentley scolded, “encyclopedias are not boring.” The main References Room was large, maybe the size of our school’s cafeteria. Along the far wall was a gigantic array of Dewey Decimal filing drawers. The center of the room was dotted with huge work tables, some even including little dividers for individual study sessions. Along the left wall were periodicals and encyclopedias. In the opposite corner of the room, an open doorway led to another hallway. “Let’s go see what’s down that hallway there,” I said, pointing.
We zipped through the main References Room, a bit of adventure in the air.
“I’m calling it right now,” Henry said, wheeling in front of us, providing my vision. “This guy’s the most harmless criminal in history. I mean, what kind of a geezer nerd do you have to be to steal from the References section of the library? What’s the most nefarious thing he could be up to, re
ally? I mean, honestly.”
“Hey, don’t knock the References section so much. There’s a lot of knowledge in this room. In fact, you could argue that pretty much all the knowledge in the world is contained in these materials.”
“Bah!” Henry dismissed Bentley with a wave of his left hand, which then went right back to manning the wheel.
“You can learn how to build an atomic bomb using the References section of the library,” Bentley said nonchalantly.
Henry stopped abruptly and turned his head. “Wait … really?”
“Sure,” Bentley said, like it was common knowledge. “There are all sorts of nefarious things our man could have been up to. It’s actually pretty scary if you think about it,” he added, not sounding remotely scared.
“Jeez,” Henry breathed. “Okay, so maybe he’s not so harmless after all.” He returned to wheeling himself forward as we went through the open doorway into the smaller hallway. Henry glanced up at the door as we passed, and I could see that it read “Archives.”
“Archives,” Henry said in mock surprise, “of course. Even older encyclopedias and other boring books. Wonderful.”
The Archives Room was nothing like the main References area, and it contrasted sharply in almost every way. To begin with, it was round—an odd thing to note considering there were nothing but 90-degree angles and straight lines all around the building’s exterior.
There were technically two stories to the room, with the domed second story mostly consisting of a half-level of shelves, accessible only by one of those permanent wheeled ladders in the center of the room. It was like a special little balcony just for books. The whole room couldn’t have been more than fifteen feet across.
Where the main library was clean and classical, the Archives Room was cluttered and dusty. Cobwebs hung in all the corners. It appeared the word “archives” basically meant “stuff to be ignored forever.”
Henry wasn’t done sharing his unfiltered opinions. “Aw, man, this is a dead-end room.”
“Not necessarily,” Bentley countered, already a couple rungs up the ladder to investigate.
“Come on, Bentley,” Henry continued. “This tiny room? This is what you think Sherlock was after?”
Bentley stopped climbing and looked down at Henry to make his point. “He has to have been after something in the References section. We can’t really know what until we start crossing off possibilities.” He returned to his climbing and in no time was slowly inching around the room inspecting the books.
I wasn’t about to climb a ladder, and Henry wasn’t either, so we began investigating what we could see on the main floor. It was impossible to investigate separately from Henry unless I was going to just feel my way around the room. I was pretty much stuck exploring whatever he was exploring if I wanted to see anything.
Henry started reading the titles of the old books on the shelves. Each one looked more antique than the last, though they were all pretty disgusting, covered with years of grime.
“‘Maps of the Mountain Masters,’” he said aloud as his powers let me read along with him.
“Okay,” I said cautiously, wondering who the mountain masters were and why they’d allowed themselves to be called something so silly.
Henry merely gave it a hearty “Ha!”
“‘The Right and True Synopsis of Rygren the Terrible,’” he continued, calling out the next title he saw. “That … actually sounds pretty cool.” He pulled the book out a tiny bit, marking it for later, I suppose, and then moved on to the next book.
“‘The Sixteen Laws,’” he said, reading another book title, “‘of Simon Smith.’”
“Ooh,” Bentley said excitedly from above. “They have ‘The Sixteen Laws of Simon Smith?!’” He poked his head down.
“Are you serious? You’ve heard of this book?”
“It’s pretty fascinating, actually. In the sixth century, the leader of the super-powered people was Simon Smith, a man of deep religious faith. He believed that heroes were literally God’s angels, and he set about rewriting the bulk of superhero law at the time from scratch. It’s really quite fascinating, actually. I’m definitely taking that book with me.” With that, he popped his head back up and continued his own exploring.
Henry looked at me and delivered a complete thought. That dude is seriously nerdy. He pulled the book out to mark its place.
“Nothing but boring crap up here, for the most part,“ Bentley called down. “Mostly ledgers and old financial accounts, from the looks of it. A few books on songs.”
Henry kept going. “‘Elben’s Wrath’—ooh, Bentley: I bet you want this one too, yeah?”
I shivered. I’d heard plenty of the scary superhero stories since starting school, but none of them gave me the creeps like the tales about Elben. No villain could ever be more frightening than an all-powerful one.
“Are you kidding?” Bentley taunted. “I have three copies of that one already.”
The pictures from Henry bobbed back and forth brightly, indicating he was most likely mimicking and mocking Bentley’s last statement. Then I saw his gaze turn to the wheeled ladder, which had just been rolled to a position right in front of the wheelchair. Henry looked at me, and I watched myself shake my head in an emphatic “no,” but he did it anyway.
Henry ripped his right arm down on his right wheel and pulled his left arm up on the left wheel, spinning the entire chair sharply to the left. The footrests banged into the ladder, sending it rolling several inches. Bentley was understandably not prepared for this and lost his footing. His feet slipped a few rungs, and he finally caught himself with his hands before falling all the way to the floor. But then, he slipped again.
The ladder shot out in a flash, and Bentley’s limp body fell into the lap of someone who probably deserved it, Henry. The impact of Bentley’s fall caused them to tumble over backward as the wheelchair capsized, sending them both scattering onto the floor.
Somewhere in the confusion, I lost my vision. Henry must have been jarred enough himself to stop sending what he was seeing. I was about to cry out in shock and alarm, fearing my friends were injured, when I began to hear laughter. It was Henry, enjoying the unexpected outcome of his little prank more than I would have expected him to.
“Ha ha ha ha. Oh, man,” he said, breathing heavily, “that was hilarious.”
“Hilarious?!” Bentley cried in offense. “You jerk.” He half-heartedly punched at Henry’s arm as he pushed himself up onto his knees. “That freaking hurt, you idiot!”
That only made Henry laugh even harder.
“I swear, Henry,” Bentley warned without much believable machismo, “one of these days you’re going to get it.”
“Oh, and I suppose you’re going to be the one to give it to me,” Henry taunted playfully.
“Don’t think I won’t hit you just because you’re in a wheelchair, buddy. Don’t forget I’m a cripple, too, technically!”
I figured it was time to intervene. “Yeah, that’s definitely a fight I’d pay to see, two crippled superheroes with mental super powers going head to head … sounds like a good time. Henry, why don’t you stop laughing and get up off the floor.” I reached out my hand, and thankfully, he grabbed it and started pulling.
Henry was a big kid, so I dug in my heels to gain leverage, and as his body began to rise up off the floor, my vision returned. I kept pulling until Henry was back in his chair, and that’s when I realized something was off. “Wait a second,” I said. “Go back down to the floor.”
“But I just got back up here,” he protested.
“I know, I know. I wanna see something,” I explained.
“Phillip, you’re blind.”
“Not with you around, buddy, remember? Now … just go look closely at that center tile there. I want to check something out.”
“Okay, okay. What the heck, lower me down.”
I reached out my hands, and he grabbed them to lower himself back down to the floor. From there, he turned a
nd used his arms to slide himself over to the center of the room, near the spot where he’d tumbled from his chair. He looked directly at the center tile, giving me a fine view of it, though that’s not really what I wanted to see.
“Okay,” he said skeptically, “what am I looking at?”
“Get closer. Put your face right down near it,” I urged.
To my surprise, he obliged, and just as his face reached the point where his nose was nearly touching the floor, my vision disappeared again.
“There!” I shouted. “My vision is gone!”
“What?” Henry asked, lifting his head to look at me, returning my vision in the process.
“And now, it’s back,” I said proudly. “Go back down.”
Henry lowered his head toward the ground again, and at the same spot, my vision disappeared again. “And now it’s gone again.”
“What are you talking about, Phillip? I’m still sending you my vision.”
“I’m sure you are,” I said, smiling. “Do you realize what this means?”
He did not. “Um, you’re a crazy person?”
But Bentley knew it instantly. “There’s an NPZ down there!” His powers snapped into action. “There’s gotta be a hidden room directly underneath this room.”
“What?” Poor Henry was still playing catch-up. “What makes you say that?”
“Why else would there be an NPZ that only kicks in at floor level, huh?”
“How do you even know it’s an NPZ?”
I fielded this one. “What else could it be, Henry? A break in the space-time continuum that disallows super powers? Your abilities work everywhere else in this building except for right here in this room, near the floor. Bentley’s right. There’s a room down there. And what’s more, I guarantee you that whatever Finch was after was in that room.”
Henry rattled off a series of questions any one of us could have asked. “Do you think that’s what the banging and crashing was? He was trying to get into the secret room? Do you think he succeeded?”