School for Sidekicks (21 page)

He frowned and pursed his lips, but he finally shook his head and I ducked out the door. I was going to be late for my next class—one of my civilian-side courses—American Government, with an emphasis on its impacts on metahuman issues. We were going over the Franklin Act this week, and the way Professor Vang explained it, the law sounded even worse for minor Masks than I'd gathered from my own reading.

Vang gave me a hard look when I came in, but didn't actually scold me, as she was busy drawing a diagram showing governmental authority over various metahuman issues. I tried to pay attention, but found I couldn't focus at all. Talking with Mike had really pulled my worries about my parents up from the depths where I'd been hiding them from myself, and now I couldn't think of anything else. I
had
to write that e-mail, but I just couldn't.

The whole rest of the school day went like that, with my classes blurring past and the sick feeling in my stomach getting worse and worse. By the time the bells rang at the end of the day, I was about ready to barf in my book bag. That's probably why I didn't see Burnish until I ran right into her in a mostly empty hall on the way back to my dorm room.

No, that's not quite true. I didn't see Burnish until I was flying backward down that hall with a huge numb spot in the center of my chest where she'd hit me with some sort of electrical blast. Even then, I only had a blurred impression of tangled black hair whirling around an angry expression on a face the color of polished copper.

I went from sick at heart to completely enraged in three-tenths of a second as all my frustrations with everything suddenly found a target. As I did so, I felt the world sort of slow down around me. I had time to look down and see that a big chunk of my shirt had burned away. The skin underneath was cracked and blistered, but there was no blood. Instead, a gooey gray ooze came from my pores. I had time to turn in the air, twisting as Professor Ivanova had shown us, so that a wild tumble turned into a triple cartwheel that ended with me on my feet facing back the way I'd just come.

I started back toward Burnish and, if I wasn't quite as quick as Speedslick, or even me that day at the museum, I was still moving faster than a speeding bicycle. I didn't have a plan or anything—I was too angry for thinking—but I knew I didn't want to let Burnish get away with what felt like a sneak attack.

As I got within striking distance, Burnish reached over and touched the front of the nearest locker. Instantly, her skin shifted from shimmering copper to the dull color of oiled steel. With her other hand she casually caught me by the throat and lifted me off the ground, holding me out at arm's length in front of her. That's when I learned the difference between my more-powerful-than-a-really-butch-lawn-tractor muscles and real Mask-grade superstrength.

I was strong then, stronger than any normal human by a factor of two or three at least, but Burnish in her steel shape was strong enough to pick up a bus and throw it. She didn't squeeze—or she could have killed me, easy—but she didn't let go either. And I could no more pry her fingers loose of my throat than a beaver could have chewed through a steel bar. It really drove home the lesson of Ivanova's F.

“Nice try,” she sneered, “but nothing like good enough to get you into the big leagues. Maybe if you keep sucking up to Foxloser, he'll build you a suit that lets you pretend you have real powers. In the meantime, watch where you're going, and stay out of my way.”

That made me even madder, but try as I might, I couldn't do anything to pull loose of Burnish's vastly stronger grip. Given the length of her arms I couldn't even reach her with my fists, and pounding on her forearm only bruised my hands.

“Burnish, put Evan down.” Mike's voice—flat, quiet, gentle even, but with real iron underneath. “Now.”

“Don't you mean Meerkat?” She spoke with a bitter, dismissive snap, but she did put me down.

“Does that look like a uniform he's wearing?” Mike asked.

Burnish shook her head. “No.”

“And class is over for the day. Speaking of which, the rest of you need to find something else to do. Now.”

I hadn't noticed until then, but maybe a half-dozen students had gathered around us in a semi-circle. At Mike's words they scattered. Mike didn't speak again until there were only the three of us left.

“So,” he continued. “No class, no costume, no outside assignments. No handle. Which means that right now Evan is officially a civilian,
and
that you were using powers on a civilian.”

“He doesn't look like much of a civilian to me.” She tapped the center of my chest where a thick gray web completely covered my injury.

“Using powers on a civilian?” I asked.

Mike sighed. “You never did read the AMO handbook I gave you, did you, Evan?”

“I'm working on it,” I mumbled, though I'd pretty much forgotten about it entirely till that very moment.

“Well, you clearly haven't worked your way as far as chapter two,” he said in a tone that made me blush. Then he turned his eyes back on Burnish. “As for you: passive powers invoked defensively don't count, and you know it, Burnish. Unlike Evan here,
you
grew up knowing it. Don't play at ignorance.”

Burnish took a deep breath and nodded. “I'm sorry, Mike.”

He raised an eyebrow, and she sighed. Then she turned to me, and with a look that told me she'd rather eat dog droppings, she added, “I'm sorry, Evan. I shouldn't have used powers on you like that.”

“That's a good start,” said Mike. “You and I are still going to have a very long talk in my office, but for my part I think we can skip reporting it officially for now.”

“Thank you, Mike.” This time Burnish's voice was sincere. “That's really kind of you.”

Mike's frown lightened, but didn't go away. “I know you're in a tough place here at the school given who your parents are, Burnish, and why you never, ever wear civvies. I don't want to make your life any harder than it already is. But going after Evan like that is completely unacceptable behavior, and it would be even if he
was
in costume. He's a brand-new student with sidekick-level powers, and you're a third-year Maskweight. What were you thinking?”

Burnish looked at me and then at her feet, and she didn't look up again or say another word. Mike's expression went thoughtful as he glanced back and forth between the two of us.

“How does your chest feel, Evan?” he asked.

I tapped the center of the scabweb where my healing power had coated my skin. It didn't hurt, and I could already see the edges starting to peel up. “I'm fine.”

I wasn't really. Not inside, where Mike's gentle dismissal of my “sidekick-level powers” had stung my pride even more deeply than my inability to do anything against Burnish. But I couldn't tell
him
that, or let Burnish see that those words had hurt me more than her lightning.

“Then you need to get changed and head for the Den ASAP. But I'll want to talk with you about this when you get back Sunday evening. I'm not going to escalate things on my own, but you have to decide how you feel about what happened with Burnish and whether you want to take it further. Using powers on a civilian is a serious offense, even if you're only a civilian by school courtesy in this case.”

Burnish actually flinched and her lips tightened, but she still didn't look up or speak. I wasn't entirely sure what the whole “civilian” thing was all about, but I suspected that if I pushed it I could get Burnish in a world of hurt. That was
very
tempting, and I made a mental note to pack the handbook with my other stuff for the weekend so I could find out more.

But then I thought about who Burnish's dad was, and how big of a jerk he was, and about how bad I felt about the mess I was in with
my
parents. I paused then, as I realized that some of her problem with me might be tangled up with how she felt about her dad. Maybe when he blacklisted me, that made her feel like he'd be proud of her if she beat me up? I didn't know who her mother was, but I got the feeling that was even more of a sore spot than Captain Commanding. As much as I wanted to lash out at her, I found that I couldn't do it.

“As far as I'm concerned, this is over,” I said. “She didn't really hurt me, just made me mad and ruined a Captain Commanding shirt I didn't like all that much anyway. Whatever you want to do about it is fine with me.”

Though Burnish didn't otherwise move, her eyes flicked from looking at her feet to looking at mine and I could see the tension go out of her back and shoulders. Mike nodded for me to go then, so I went.

*   *   *

This time, knowing what to expect, I had a lot more fun riding in the
Flying Fox
. I even put my hands on the controls and pretended I was flying it, though I made darned sure I didn't actually put any pressure on anything. For a few brief minutes I even forgot about the mess with my parents.

What peace it brought me started to fade soon after I hauled my stuff out of the plane. To start with, Foxman wasn't there to greet me. Instead, Denmother had one of the little bronze Foxbots waiting to lead me to my rooms—a huge suite behind a hidden door in the library area of the main dome.

It
was
pretty cool to see a set of bookshelves slide silently aside to let me pass into the modestly sized parlor that centered my five-room suite. I also had a large bedroom with a huge canopy bed in the center, a bathroom with a soaking tub big enough for a small swim meet, a walk-in closet with three more versions of the Meerkat costume neatly arrayed on their own racks, and an office/workroom that was larger than any two of the other rooms combined. I suppose the big-time secret hideout was one upside to being relegated to sidekick status.

Once I'd gone through the whole suite, I tossed my backpack on the bed and went back out into the parlor. On my side, the door was hidden by a broad fireplace with a very convincing holographic fire burning in the hearth. As I approached it, the fires parted like a curtain and the back wall slid aside to let me out into the main dome.

When I asked Denmother where to find Foxman, she directed me to the trophy room and another concealed door—this one hiding beneath a marble coffee table—that slid aside to expose a set of stairs. The steps spiraled down into a large and dimly lit round room. Various pedestals and glass cases filled with random bric-a-brac stood scattered around the space.

Foxman, or—considering his lack of costume—Rand, sat with his back to the stairs in a big overstuffed chair that had obviously been dragged down from the living room above. He was wearing some sort of fancy patterned silk jacket. He didn't look up when I came down the stairs, though the light streaming in from the trapdoor must have alerted him to my presence.

As I got closer, I could see that he was just sitting and staring meditatively at the wall in front of him. A MaskerAde stood on the arm of his chair and a half-dozen crushed cans lay on the floor around his feet. Closer still and I saw that the wall itself was covered with tiny letters carved into the stone—names. I paused beside his chair, trying to figure out what he was doing.

Without looking up, he said, “Hello, Evan.”

“Hello … Mr. Hammer.”

“Rand. You're my sidekick now, and we're going to be fighting crime together. I think it would be better to skip the formality. Especially given your lack of a sidekick's permit and how very many laws we're going to be violating in the process. Don't you?” He sounded resigned and a little angry—not at all his usual manic.

“I guess so.”

“You do still want to fight crime, I assume?” He stood abruptly then and I got a better look at his clothes, a thigh-length jacket belted with a silk sash, black silk pajamas, and worn leather slippers. “Well, other than the violations of the Franklin Act that we are going to commit while doing it. Fighting that particular bit of crime would be self-defeating. Quite literally.”

I nodded. I'd been badly stung when Burnish mocked my comparative lack of powers, and even more so when Mike casually dismissed them as well. I wanted to—I don't know—redeem myself, maybe? I'm not sure what I wanted exactly, but I suddenly knew that I needed to make being a Mask
matter
. If I couldn't do that, then all my dreams, and the rift with my parents, and … well, everything, was all meaningless. And I absolutely couldn't bear the thought of that.

“It's the only thing that makes any sense to me right now,” I said after a moment.

“Hold on to that!” Rand's voice was fierce in a way I hadn't heard before. “Hold on to that and never let it go.” But he didn't move, and I could see his eyes drift back to the wall. “I did and, hmm, never mind.” He still didn't move.

“Are you all right?” I finally asked.

“Yeah.” He nodded. “As much as I ever am, anyway. Come on, I'll suit up and then I guess we can go right some wrongs, however minor.”

I wanted to ask about the names on the wall, but Rand's attitude and the expression on his face when he looked at them convinced me now wasn't the time. A few minutes later, I stood in the manufactory watching as a dozen robotic arms deftly assembled the Foxman armor around Rand, who had put an Invulycra jumpsuit on as a base layer. The whole operation took less time than it took us to walk up the stairs from the trophy room.

The Foxmobile had been fully repaired since my last visit, and it didn't show so much as a single scrape. Foxman blew into the tube himself this time. But he still made me drive because “You're the one who wants this. I gave up years ago, and I'm not buying back into the whole thing now.”

For the next three hours, we quietly patrolled the streets. As soon as I started the car, Foxman had pulled up a menu labeled “Foxouflage” and selected “Bread truck.” We didn't actually encounter any crime, but then it wasn't yet dark. Just before the sun went down, we headed back to the Den for dinner. I would have preferred to keep going, but Foxman insisted that proper meals were part of the deal he cut with Mike.