Infiltration (14 page)

With that in mind, I teleported to the bottom of a mountainous area located in a state park about ten miles outside the city limits. This was to be the venue for a race between speedsters. The participants were to run along a scenic but twisting, curving hillside road all the way through the mountains — making certain to hit specific checkpoints along the way — and then back again. First one across the finish line, of course, would be the winner.

When I popped up, I got a bit of a surprise: there were hundreds of people present — most of them teens, and quite a few in superhero costumes. Several were even dressed as Kid Sensation, which shocked me until I remembered that a number of savvy clothing manufacturers had pounced on the popularity of my fight clip and profited enormously by marketing copies of my costume and likeness. I sighed; everything always seemed to come back to that stupid, on-air brawl.

There was a bright side, however. With so many other people in costume and several clones of me walking around, the real Kid Sensation didn’t stand out. The companies that made the costumes had done an excellent job in terms of duplicating my outfit — especially when they didn’t have the original to work with — and for the umpteenth time it occurred to me that I should be receiving royalties.

While the crowd of onlookers I found myself in seemed to be a shapeless mass, there actually was some level of order to its randomness. The spectators were formed up on both sides and the rear of the starting line, creating a huge
U
around those competing in the race. Many of those present, especially the teens, seemed to be rabid fans of one speedster or another, and they screamed the names of their favorites so loudly that I knew they’d be hoarse the next day. They also held up homemade posters and signs as encouragement for their personal picks.

There were about twenty supers competing in the race. Looking out over the runners, I saw Pronto, a fifteen-year-old speedster from the Alpha League teens. He looked nervous as he stepped to the starting line along with his fellow competitors, and maybe he was right to be. Although he had good speed, I had the distinct feeling that he was a bit out of his depth here. Unfortunately, I was proven right when the race started just a few moments later.

Immediately after the starting gun fired, the runners streaked away at speeds almost too fast for the human eye to follow. Wind from their passage buffeted the crowd, kicking up dust and blowing away several posters (much to the dismay of the fans who had made them). I shifted into super speed, and the world went into slow motion all around me — except those participating in the race, who now appeared to be running at something akin to normal speed from my perspective. I then telescoped my vision in an attempt to keep the runners in view.

The race itself was structured somewhat differently than what one would normally expect. Although the runners had begun their trek in the area where the crowd was assembled, the actual start/finish line was about a mile up the road. Once they reached that juncture, the race would begin in earnest and they could run flat-out at full speed.

The reason for this odd setup was simple: some, if not all, of the runners were capable of exceeding Mach speed. Letting them start off at that pace in close proximity to the spectators would have been a very poor decision. The sound of a score of sonic booms sounding almost simultaneously would have certainly been startling — if not outright terrifying; somebody probably would have had a heart attack. Thus, the runners were initially limited to subsonic speed.

From what I could see, a flag marked the spot where the runners could go supersonic. As they reached that point, they really stepped on the gas, and the air filled with a number of sharp cracks as speedsters began breaking the sound barrier.

As I mentioned, the road that the racers were on had lots of twists and turns through the mountains, and — even with my vision enhanced — I soon lost sight of the runners. Fortunately, each of the speedsters was wearing a tracker, and as they passed various checkpoints their names appeared in the appropriate spot on a giant leaderboard located near the assembled fans.

The race itself covered a distance of approximately one hundred miles — fifty through the mountains and fifty back to the finish line. Sounds like a lot, unless you have an idea of exactly how fast some speedsters can run.

The winner of the race ended up being a guy known as Sol, which apparently stood for “speed of light.” He was with a British team of supers known as the Golden Circle, and he finished the race — to much cheering and applause — in just under three minutes. He wasn’t even breathing hard when he crossed the finish line.

Pronto finished in ninth place, and looked crestfallen at what he obviously felt was a subpar performance. While the winner was being presented with a trophy and asked for comments, I made my way over to where Pronto was standing, surrounded by several other Alpha League teens who were apparently trying to cheer him up by praising his performance.

“Hey, Pronto,” I said, getting his attention. “Good race.”

He looked at me like he didn’t know who I was. “Uh…thanks.”

“Don’t get too wrapped up in this,” I continued. “Remember, you’re just fifteen. You’re going to get faster.”

“Yeah…uh…yeah,” he replied, brow furrowing like he was trying to think of something to say. “Uh…Jim?”

“Yeah?”

Relief seemed to wash over him. “Okay, so it
is
you.”

Now I was the one looking confused. “Of course it’s me! Who else—”

And then I remembered: I had shapeshifted, and didn’t look like the Jim he knew. I glanced around to make sure no one else was watching (other than our Alpha League colleagues, that is), and then changed my visage so that he could see my real face for a second, then shifted back to my Kid Sensation persona.

“I’m sorry,” Pronto said. “So many people are in costume here, and there are a couple of guys who could pass as your twin. Kid Sensation’s twin, that is. I mean—”

“I know what you mean,” I said, cutting him off. “Anyway, you did great. You’ll be faster than these other guys in no time.”

I made small talk with Pronto and the other Alpha League teens for a few minutes, then said my goodbyes and prepared to teleport to the next event. This time it was Electra who I was going to see in action.

She had originally been slated to be part of the live broadcast, but a last-minute schedule change had resulted in her being moved up. (Bearing that in mind, it’s a good thing I decided to attend the prerecorded events.)

Electra was involved in a true exhibition — an open display of her electrical powers in a small gymnasium before an audience seated on wooden bleachers. The producers had originally planned to showcase her talents in a local stadium that had metal bleachers, but once they realized the nature of her powers and how well metal conducts electricity, they moved it to a more appropriate venue.

I had never been to the gymnasium in question before, so I popped up at a familiar spot a few blocks away and then zipped over at super speed. Dressed in an alternate (and more alluring) version of her Alpha League costume and sporting tinted goggles, Electra was just getting started when I arrived, and she put on an outstanding show. She made light bulbs shine simply by holding them in her hand; she powered up various electrical devices, from toasters to televisions. She ionized the air and made a young girl’s hair stand on end. She even jumpstarted a car that had been brought inside with a dead battery. All in all, it was a very impressive display of her powers.

After she finished, she spent a little time signing autographs. While I was waiting for her to get done, someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around to find Pronto standing there.

“We meet again,” he said with a grin.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “If I’d known you were headed here, I’d have given you a lift.”

“No big deal,” he replied. He nodded in Electra’s direction. “She’s great, isn’t she?”

I nodded, and at the same time picked up on a powerful emotion sweeping through Pronto, ringing out like a church bell at midnight: Pronto had a crush on Electra.

It shouldn’t have surprised me. Electra was not only pretty, but also a very nice person. Truth be told, I was aware of the fact that lots of guys had feelings for her — part of the curse of being an empath — but I wasn’t concerned because I also knew the depth and sincerity of her feelings for me. That being the case, I simply ignored what I was picking up from Pronto, which was par for the course in my case; I usually ignored the vast majority of the emotions I picked up from others, much as normal people tend to tune out conversations going on around them.

While we waited for the crowd around Electra to thin out, I saw Smokey and Sarah headed our way. It shouldn’t have surprised me that they were here; Smokey wasn’t participating in the exhibition, so it was only natural that they would show up to root Electra on.

When they got close enough, Smokey extended a hand for Pronto to shake and then introduced Sarah, at the same time eyeing me warily. Emotionally, I felt confusion and conflict coming from him, and it took me a second to realize why.

I said to him mentally, and felt his bewilderment fade.

he responded.

I broke off the mental link without replying as Sarah suddenly extended her hand to me, saying, “And you are…?”

Smokey and I broke out laughing at that, and it took a few minutes for her to process the fact that I was not only the Jim she knew as Electra’s boyfriend, but — as she put it — the “world-famous Kid Sensation.”

“More like the world-
in
famous Kid Sensation,” I said.

I don’t think Sarah believed it until I did another back-and-forth shift between my real face and Kid Sensation. She had known I was a super, but she had never pried about my power set so there’s no reason she should have known about me.

After that, the four of us waited around making casual conversation until Electra was done signing her name for the last time. She came over and greeted us warmly. Despite the fact that I didn’t look like my actual self, Electra had no trouble recognizing me. Thanks to her power, she could identify people by their bioelectric fields, which were as distinctive to her as faces or fingerprints.

“Thanks for being here, guys,” she said. “I really appreciate the support.”

“No problem,” Sarah said.

“That’s what friends are for,” Pronto added.

“Thanks,” Electra said. “And I’m sorry I missed your race, Pronto. How did it go?”

Pronto seemed over the moon that Electra wanted to hear about his escapades and started nervously prattling almost non-stop about every detail of his run.

As he spoke, Electra leaned towards my ear and whispered, “I really glad
you
were able to make it.”

I responded telepathically, opening a channel between us.

she said.

I nodded in understanding. Vestibule was a teen teleporter, who also had a career as a high-profile fashion model. She was a member (in name only, for the most part) of a superhero team, and also a bit of a prima donna who tended to attract media attention, so I could understand why the producers of the exhibition would want her has part of the show. It also didn’t surprise me at all that she would want to be on during prime time. In fact, I was stunned that she didn’t demand the slot reserved for me and Dynamo.

I said, turning my thoughts back to the present.

Electra replied.

I said, raising an eyebrow.

she said, giving me a peck on the cheek.

I groaned audibly in mock frustration, which Pronto mistook as a cue for him to wrap up his story. He did so and then excused himself, taking off in a blur of motion.

“Dude,” Smokey said, as Sarah gave me a particularly hard look. “That was so not cool.”

“It’s not what it looked like,” I said, then proceeded to explain.

After everything was put into context for them, Sarah and Smokey seemed willing to retract their stamp of disapproval. I made a mental note to apologize to Pronto later, and then asked Smokey and Sarah about seeing the triathlon with us. Once they replied in the affirmative, I teleported the four of us to where the triathlon was being held.