School for Sidekicks (9 page)

Mike ducked out of the room. A moment later, the candy-apple-red cactus thingy on the roof pinged rather sharply, and my parents were just there, standing a few feet away like someone had teleported them in.

My mom spotted me first. “Evan! Where have you been?” She threw herself across the room and wrapped her arms … right through me. “What's going on!?! Why? What?” She half turned and spoke to someone I couldn't see. “Agent Brendan! What are you trying to pull?”

My dad had started toward me as well, but now he stopped and went to stand beside my mom.

A disembodied head appeared a few feet in front of my mom, a woman with short spiky red hair. “I'm sorry, Dr. Quick. Evan is in an undisclosed location. This holographic transmission is the best we can do for you today, though I'm sure you'll be allowed to see him in person soon. Now, we can't keep a line like this open for very long, so I suggest you focus your attention on your son.”

The head vanished and both my parents turned back to me.

My dad asked, “Is that really you, Evan?”

“It's me, Dad. I'm sorry I didn't call sooner, but I've kind of been in a cocoon.” Which sounded way stranger to say than it had in my head.

My mom walked over and went to one knee in front of my wheelchair. “Evan? It really is you.”

“Yes, Mom.”

Then she started crying. I didn't know what to do or say to that. My mom
never
cries. Well, except at weddings, but that's different. This was big gulping sobs, and it made me feel absolutely awful because I knew it was all my fault.

“I'm sorry, Mom. I didn't mean to scare you. I've just … it's … I … I'm really sorry.”

But she didn't stop crying. After a couple more long seconds, my dad stepped forward. “Why are you using that chair?”

“I'm just a little wobbly after the cocoon,” I replied. “But really, I'm fine. See.” I got out of the chair and reached out a hand to my dad. It passed right through him.

He winced. “We've been so worried, and OSIRIS … well, I never realized how much power the Franklin Act gives them.” He looked at my mother, who hadn't stopped crying yet, but did seem to be getting it back together. “They pulled us both out of work and took us to their Heropolis headquarters without any explanations or even giving us a chance to call each other. Just ‘come with me now,' and a flash of the badge. Then straight into a waiting helicopter and—”

My mother broke in, “I think they did it to frighten us. We've been very vocal about their taking you away, and they don't like being questioned. Where are you?”

“At the AMO,” I said quickly. “It's a school for—”

“We know that much,” my dad said, and there was a flash of exasperation in his tone. “This Mike person told us that much after he gave us a long spiel about classified information and the penalties for revealing it. But where are you?”

I was about to repeat myself when I realized he must mean where was the school. “I have no idea. I came in unconscious and I'm currently in a room with no windows.” I could be at the center of the Earth for all I know, which would actually be cool in a scary way. “I suppose I can find out where the building is…”

“Do it.” He looked really angry, a rarity for my dad.

“Now?”

“Of course now. We need to know where you are so we can come get you and bring you home.”

“I don't think they're going to want to let you take me away like that—” I replied, thinking back to what Professor Matheny had said about the Franklin Act and my parents' recent experience with it.

“I couldn't care less what
they
want. We're coming to get you, and that's final. We're not going to have any more of this Mask nonsense afterward either. You're far too young. Go find out where you are. We'll wait.”

I half turned toward the door, then stopped. I'd spent my whole life working toward this “Mask nonsense” as my dad put it. I really hated the way upsetting him and my mom made me feel, but I wasn't sure
I
wanted to let them take me away quite yet. I was still trying to sort things out. I had powers now. That was amazing and terrifying, and I needed to learn more about them.

“Evan James Quick,” he said sternly. “Go find out where you are. Now!”

“I…” What did I want to say to that? “Dad, hang on for a second and listen to me. I need to think—”

“No!” my dad shouted. “There's nothing to think about. Do you have any idea how upset your mother is? How upset I am? You're coming home this instant, and that is final. We are not letting you follow this stupid Mask fantasy one second longer. We should never have been so indulgent in the first place. This ends now.”

“Let me talk to him.” My mother put her hand on my dad's shoulder and stepped past him. “Evan, honey, I know that you think you want this. But it's not reasonable.” She spoke soothingly, but firmly. “You're only thirteen. Come home so we can talk about it. You don't really want to be a Mask. You have to know that. You're a good boy, a normal boy, a
human
boy.”

I couldn't believe she'd said that. “Mom, even if I didn't want powers—and you
know
I've always wanted them—I have them now. Whether I
want
to be a Mask isn't the question anymore. I
am
a Mask.” I couldn't believe I was arguing with my parents like this, but what I was telling them was true, and it was really important. “The only question is what kind I'm going to be.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” she said, her voice taking on an edge I'd only ever heard her use with university administrators. “You're a child, Evan.
My
child, not some freak who runs around in tights and a cape.”

I felt myself starting to get genuinely angry. This was my
dream
she was talking about. “Freak? Is that what you really think of metas? Because you've never said anything like that before, and you've always known how much I wanted to be a Mask.”

“That was different,” she said, and I could hear her forcing herself to use her
reasonable
voice. “Every child wants to be a Mask when they're younger. I played Hoods and Masks like the other kids did. So did your dad. But that's
play
, Evan. It's not real. I never believed for a moment you were actually going to turn into some kind of … I mean really. The odds are astronomical. We've explained probability to you. You had to know it was a fantasy.”

“Maybe,” I said, “on some level. But it's not a fantasy
anymore
. It's my reality. Even if I came home right now, I'd still be metahuman. I'd still be a Mask, I just wouldn't be getting any of the training I need to become a hero.”

“
If
you came home right now?
If?
There is no
if
about it, young man. You are coming home this instant. That is final. Your father and I have had plenty of time to talk this over, and we will not budge on this issue. This isn't a game of Masks and Hoods anymore, Evan. This is
real
and it's
dangerous
.” There was a long silence, before she almost whispered, “You could have
died
at the museum. If Captain Commanding hadn't arrived when he did…”

Arrived? Woke up was more like it, but I didn't say anything because this was dangerous ground. If she ever learned how close I had come to checking out for good, she'd never agree to let me be a Mask. But that only made my own resolution firmer. I had to learn how to make the best of what I had become.

“I need to find out what I am,” I said, my own voice shaky. “
Who
I am. I need to understand this.”

“No. You don't.” She crossed her arms and I could tell from the expression on her face that she wasn't going to actually
listen
to another word I said—that she hadn't really been listening for a while. “What you
need
to do is come home. If you don't find out where you are and let us come get you right now, there will be
serious consequences
.”

That was it. Something snapped down deep in my chest. What possible consequences could my parents come up with that would be worse than getting hit by Spartanicus's death ray? Or spending a week and a half in a cocoon? I had already experienced some extremely
serious consequences
and survived them all right on my own, thank you very much. I was a Mask now. That was my truth, and I had to do this.

I took a deep, ragged breath and plunged over the edge. “Then I guess there will have to be serious consequences, because I
need
to learn more about the me I am now. Look, I'll talk to you again later—maybe tomorrow, once I've had a chance to—”

“Evan! You're not safe there. We are
done
talking about this, and you are coming home now!”

A movement behind my mother drew my eyes, as Agent Brendan stuck her face into the pickup field again. “Dr. Quick, I'm afraid that you don't have the right to make that decision anymore. If your son wants to enroll in Hero High, OSIRIS will make sure that happens.” She looked at me. “Evan, do you want me to close this session down?”

“What!” yelled my dad. “Evan is our son. How dare you!”

Agent Brendan didn't even look at my dad. “Evan?”

“Yeah, I guess I do. I'm sorry, Mom, I have to do this. End transmission.”

It was the hardest thing I'd ever said, but I had no choice. It had never for a second occurred to me that my parents wouldn't support me at least as far as finding out about what I was now, that they would, or even
could,
act so angry and irrational. There'd been something disturbing in my mother's voice when she called Masks … No, when she'd called
me
a freak.

I don't think she'd meant it that way, or thought through the fact that she was speaking about me. That was fear talking—fear for me, for my safety—but I didn't doubt for a second that was how she really felt about … well … us.

That day at Camp Commanding? The one where I broke the barbells? Not the worst day of my life.

Not even close.

 

9

Hero High?

Teeth, meet boot. Boot, teeth.

Not literally, maybe, but, man, if I didn't feel like someone had kicked me in the face. For as long as I could remember I had wanted to be a Mask. It was my dream. And my parents had supported me in it. Right up until it came true.

If you'd told me a year ago that I was finally going to get superpowers and that the first thing I did with them was rescue Captain Commanding, I would never have believed you. If somehow you'd convinced me it was true, I'd have been walking on air. If you'd then told me I was going to go to a super-secret school for Masks to learn how to use my powers? I can't even imagine how thrilled I'd have been.

If you'd also told me I was going to spend my first day at Mask school lying on an upper bunk in my dorm room, staring at the ceiling and wondering how my life had fallen apart instead of bouncing off the walls, I'd … I don't know. I just don't know. I was living it now and I still couldn't make it come out right in my head.

“Hero High? Hero
High
.” That's what Agent Brendan had called the place, but no matter how I said it or how often, I couldn't process it. “
Hero
High.”

“That's not what we actually call the place.” A boy's voice came from somewhere below me and I started—I hadn't realized I wasn't alone anymore.

I didn't know what to say, so I quietly closed my eyes and hoped he'd go away, whoever he was.

“Hey, you okay up there?” I felt the whole bunk shift, and a sudden weight on the mattress beside me.

Okay, he wasn't going away. I turned my head and met a pair of brown eyes only inches from my own. They belonged to a friendly face that was a slightly lighter shade of brown. He was standing on the lower bunk and leaning on mine.

“Uh, hi,” I said.

“Yeah, I didn't think so. Hang on.” The face blurred. The bunk shifted again, and without me having seen the intervening steps, I found a young man sitting cross-legged on the bunk by my feet. “Jeda Marquez,” his hand was suddenly extended in an offer to shake. Again, I didn't see the motion that put it there. “You can call me Jeda. Or Speedslick, if you prefer.”

He obviously wasn't going away, so I sat up and took his hand. “Evan Quick.”

He shook it. “Is that your name, or your Mask handle?”

“Name, I guess. No one's given me a handle yet.”

He laughed. “You guess that's your name? Man, you really are having a bad day. What happened?”

“I … I don't really want to talk about it.” I did, but not with some stranger, and the people I normally took my problems to
were
the problem this time.

Jeda frowned. “You look like someone kicked you in the stomach there. Around here that usually means family problems. Folks throw you out?”

I found I couldn't stop blinking. His conversational leaps seemed even faster than the physical ones. “I'm sorry, what?”

“It's a pretty common story. Everyone is cool with having a Mask in the family right up until it happens. A lot of kids who go to school here aren't welcome at home anymore.” He shrugged—a quick up-down movement that was almost too fast to see. “I know that stuff's hard to talk about, so I figured I'd blurt it out and give you the chance to talk about it if you needed to. Worst thing that happens is you take a swing at me. Best is I save you some grief.”

“You know that's crazy, right?” I wanted to be angry at Jeda. Instead I found myself rather liking him. “This is a school for Masks. What if I was superstrong and punched your face out the back of your head?”