Infiltration (10 page)

“But it seems to be limited,” BT added. “I mean, he only seems to be able to paralyze people. He’s not like a true telepath, who could get in there and take control.”

Mouse contemplated that for a second, then turned to me. “Well, how about it? Were you able to use any of your other powers?”

“Huh?” I was caught a little off-guard by the current line of questioning.

“Your other abilities,” Mouse said. “Physically you may have been petrified, but if Braintrust is right, you should have been able to use your other powers — telekinesis, for example. Could you?”

“Point A,” I said, mustering up a bit of indignation, “I resent the term ‘petrified.’ It makes it seem like I was cowering in a corner.”

“Fine,” Mouse said. “You weren’t petrified. You were dazed, stunned, frozen, what have you. What’s Point B?”

“Point B, with respect to my other powers…” I trailed off, not quite able to say the words.

“Yes?” BT queried anxiously, after a few seconds of silence.

I looked sheepishly from BT to Mouse, who suddenly threw up his hands, grunting in exasperation. Obviously he knew what my silence was saying, but BT appeared a bit befuddled.

“Don’t you get it?” Mouse said in response to her look of confusion. “He didn’t even
try
to use his other powers! It’s like he forgot about them!”

“Hey, man,” I said defensively, “when you wake up blind, your first thought isn’t ‘I wonder if I still have my sense of smell?’ It’s ‘Oh, snap! I’m blind! How do I get my sight back?’”

“So,” BT said, “your concern over fixing what was broken overrode your thoughts of finding out what else still worked. That’s understandable.”

“It was boneheaded, is what it was,” Mouse chimed in, brow creased. I knew, however, that the frown on his face, as well as his irritable tone, was more indicative of worry than anger.

Every teen member of a superhero team gets assigned a mentor — someone you can approach with any questions you have, any issues you’re dealing with, etc. Mouse was mine. In general, we got along exceptionally well, and part of that derived from the fact that we spoke frankly with each other — especially Mouse. In that sense, he was probably more like the older brother that I never had, as he was seldom shy about telling me when he thought I’d screwed up. Obviously this was one such occasion, but I had no doubt that any harsh words spoken were rooted in concern for my welfare.

“Boneheadedness aside,” I said, “any idea how I should deal with him if our paths cross again?

“Yeah,” Mouse said. “Don’t look him in the eye.”

BT smacked him lightly on the shoulder, to which Mouse simply raised his arms in a what-did-I-do gesture.

“On the more practical side,” BT said, “all indications are that Gorgon Son’s power is only temporary. When exactly did you get free of his control?”

I thought for a moment. “After Alpha Prime knocked him out.”

“And when did Alpha Prime break free of his paralysis?” she asked.

“After Gorgon Son became preoccupied with me,” I said. “He seemed obsessed with hitting me with that weird mace.”

“Well, based on those last few statements, I’d venture to guess two things,” Mouse said. “First, Gorgon Son’s paralysis doesn’t affect your other powers. After all, you stayed phased when he tried to hit you, so the odds are favorable that you’ll still have your other abilities if it happens again.”

“Hmmm.” I rubbed my chin in thought. “And what do the unfavorable odds say?”

Mouse hesitated a moment before answering. “That the paralysis affects your other powers by locking them into place the moment you become frozen.”

I blinked, processing what I’d just heard. “So in other words, I may have stayed phased while paralyzed last night because that’s the ability I was using when Gorgon Son used his power on me. Whatever power is in the ‘On’ position when he freezes me will stay on, while the others stay off.”

“In a nutshell,” Mouse said.

“Okay,” I said a little numbly, still mentally chewing on the info I’d just been fed. “What’s your other observation?”

“I think Gorgon Son’s ability requires him to focus on his victim,” Mouse said. “The minute he got caught up in trying to beat you down, Alpha Prime was able to move again. As soon as AP coldcocked him, you got control of your body back.”

“In essence,” BT said, “assuming it actually
is
a form of telepathy, you fight it the way you would with any other telepath. Based on what we know, I’d suggest trying to break his concentration.”

“Easier said than done,” I replied, reflecting on how this guy had mentally slipped past all my defenses. Any future encounters with him had a real risk of serious harm.

Chapter 8

Our discussion of Gorgon Son essentially brought my debriefing to a close. We still had more questions than answers — Who was behind this? What did they want? — but we weren’t likely to get any more information in the near term. That being the case, BT excused herself and stepped over to the other side of the room, where she became absorbed in the data streaming across one of the monitors. I decided to take the opportunity to have a discussion with Mouse about something else that had been on my mind: the exhibition. Mouse, however, beat me to the punch.

“So,” he began, “you ready for tonight?”

I shrugged. “More or less.”

“You don’t sound particularly excited. Most kids would be thrilled to be on national TV.”

“I’m just ready for it to be over with.”

Mouse stared at me for a second before responding. “Listen, I know you’re not one of those guys who’s all wrapped up in the trappings of fame that often come with being a super. You just want to do your job.”

“Exactly.”

“But doing that job — like being a cop, soldier, or the like — is a lot easier when the public is behind you. When the people you’re serving support you. And it’s a lot easier to win that support when the public feels like they know you. Tonight is a great way to make that happen.”

“I don’t recall seeing the broadcast of your coming-out party when you joined the League.”

“I’m a special case. A couple of years ago, you couldn’t have paid me to be part of the Alpha League. They’d already rejected me three times, so it was clear that they didn’t value my talents.”

I already knew this part of Mouse’s story. He had participated in the Super Teen Trials three years in a row and had been rebuffed each time.

“And yet, here you are,” I said.

Mouse snorted in mock contempt. “I was coerced into joining. Oddly enough, although they made some other concessions to me, I only had one real requirement when I finally agreed to put on the uniform.”

“What was that?”

“I told them that I’d do my job, but I wanted absolutely no involvement with office politics. You know, League leadership and all that.”

I laughed. “How’s that working out for you?”

“It’ll be great as soon as I can get some dumb schmoe to take the job from me,” he said, grinning.

“How exactly did you end up as the boss man here? You’ve never said.”

Mouse sighed. “It’s not a position I set out for, and I was actually serious about telling them that I didn’t want to be involved in office politics. I just wanted to do my job.”

“So what happened?”

“I got here and almost immediately started asking questions about the way the League did things. Based on the answers I got, I started making suggestions for improvements, and the other members tended to adopt ninety-nine percent of what I proposed. From there, it was just a short hop to go from offering suggestions to giving unsolicited opinions, and then I moved on up to simply making decisions about what I felt was important. Before I knew it, I was running the joint. Go figure.”

“Anyway, we’ve gone off on a tangent here,” he said. “The point I was trying to make is that you’ve got to open up a little and let the general public get a glimpse of who you are.”

“They’ll get a glimpse,” I countered, “but probably not much more than that. I’m shooting to get through this thing as fast as I can.”

“Wait a minute…aren’t you part of the last act in the exhibition?”

“Yeah, me and Dynamo. They’ve got us pitted against each other in some kind of competition.”

“If you’re last, that means you’re the main event. You’re the reason everyone will stay tuned until the bitter end. Knowing that, are you really planning to just zip through whatever they have set up for you at the speed of sound?”

“Only if I can’t get up to the speed of light.”

Mouse shook his head in exasperation. “That’s a bit of a juvenile attitude, don’t you think? This isn’t like you, Jim. What’s
really
bothering you?”

I was silent for a moment, and then — without actually intending to do it so bluntly — found myself blurting out what was really weighing on my mind. “The whole thing’s kind of stupid. I mean, me and Dynamo? What kind of competition is that? Our powers don’t even match up! He’s the super-strong, impossible-to-hurt type, while I’ve got super speed, teleportation—”

“And too many other abilities to list in a reasonable time,” Mouse chimed in. “I’d just assume that the event organizers thought that it would be a good match-up. His strength against your versatility.”

“It’s about as good a match-up as a basketball team playing a football team in ice hockey. Whatever they have planned, neither of us is likely to be in our element.”

“So exactly what are your respective elements, if I may ask?”

“Dynamo should be in some strongman competition — lifting sedans and the like. For me, maybe something with another speedster, or another teleporter like Vestibule or—”

“Vestibule’s already signed up for another event.”

“My point is, Dynamo and I shouldn’t be battling head-to-head. The last thing I need is some silly face-off that’s going to perpetuate the myth that there’s some type of competition between him and me. Or worse, erupt into some sort of blood feud between us.”

“Hold on,” Mouse said, frowning. “There’s supposedly some sort of rivalry between you and Dynamo?”

“Not as far as I’m concerned, but that’s the rumor.”

“Since when? And what are you supposedly fighting him for?”

I threw up my hands in exasperation. “Where’ve you been, man? There’s all kinds of constant chatter about who is going to lead the next generation of supers. With Paramount and that mindless Gestapo who were following him locked away, the title is up for grabs.”

“And the smart money is on either you or Dynamo,” Mouse said, finally catching on.

“Apparently we’re the top two contenders.”

“Okay,” Mouse said. “I get the rumor. In fact, I think I’ve actually heard it before but simply didn’t pay much attention to it, so it didn’t even register that that’s what you were referring to when you mentioned a rivalry with Dynamo.”

“
Alleged
rivalry.”

“But if that’s all it is, what’s the big deal? Even if the event organizers paired you guys for that reason and the exhibition thing doesn’t perfectly mesh with either your powers or his, it’s just a little friendly competition. There’s no reason that it has to escalate into more than that.”

I let out a deep breath. “You don’t understand, Mouse. That whole thing with me and Paramount…it started with a little ‘friendly competition.’ A paintball game.”

“Huh?” Mouse was, of course, a bit confused. Not many people knew this part of the story, and even those who did probably hadn’t considered the information as a whole and connected the dots.

“Everyone knows that my on-air fight with the Alpha League started off as an altercation between me and Paramount. What they don’t know is that, prior to the theatrics that were caught on film, Paramount and I had been on opposite sides of a ‘friendly’ paintball game.”

“Let me guess: you beat him. That kid never learned how to be a graceful loser.”

“No, my team actually lost; they clobbered us. But I did something worse than beat him. I embarrassed him during the game, made him a laughingstock.”

I half-expected Mouse to ask for more detail, but he didn’t. Instead, he just pursed his lips and let out a long, low whistle. “Yeah, that would do it with Paramount. He always took himself way too seriously, especially for a kid. A lot of other things make sense now, but of course, hindsight is always twenty-twenty. Regardless, you should have told me all this before.”

I shrugged. “It didn’t seem important.”

“Well, at least now I understand your issue with the exhibition: the last time Kid Sensation was on TV it was a disaster, and you’re worried about inadvertently putting on an encore performance.”

I nodded. “To be honest, part of it, initially, was the thought of losing my privacy, but there’s a workaround for that, of course. I’ll just change my appearance — make myself look like the Kid Sensation that everyone’s grown accustomed to. But yes, the main thing is the fisticuffs. I just don’t want anything like that happening again. I mean, I’m only just coming back out of the woodwork after two years.”