The Nameless Hero (15 page)

Milton rocketed straight for the crowd of villains. I watched him, too stunned to do anything else. In his uniform and his jet-shoes, facing down five identical supervillains, Milton looked more heroic than the rest of us combined.

Milton reached into his utility belt, grabbed hold of a silver canister, and tossed it. When the canister popped open, it unleashed a net that tangled around two of the Multipliers. They went tumbling toward the earth.

For a second there, we had an advantage. Five against three. But it didn’t last very long. There was a sound like firecrackers going off, and the number of Multipliers increased to seven. Nine if you counted those who were caught in the net.

Either way you added it up, we were in for a tough fight.

“That’s the one!” Miranda yelled, pointing. “The original—he’s in the middle!”

“I’ll see if I can separate him from the rest of the group,” nFinity said, pulling out his streamlined hover scooter. He launched into the air, fire rushing out of his hands.

The group of Multipliers dispersed. nFinity followed the middle one as he veered downward, out of sight. Milton soared through the air, chasing after two others.

That left Sophie, Miranda, and me. Without any flying
accessories, we were pinned to the platform, ten stories up. Meanwhile, the Multipliers had regrouped (and had added a few more clones to their ranks while they were at it). Nine purple and black villains drifted in front of us menacingly.

“How is
this
a fair fight?” I asked. “These guys can fly.”

“And multiply themselves,” Miranda pointed out.

“We’ve gotta do something to hold them off until nFinity can capture the original,” Sophie said.

Glowing underneath her uniform, she plunged her hand into the billboard behind us and ripped away a massive chunk of the plaster wall that the advertisement was glued to.

“Here you go.” She handed the section to me.

“Uh … thanks.” I looked down at the ragged piece of billboard in my hand. Stuck to one side was a picture of a gigantic potato chip. “What do you expect me to do with
this
?”

Sophie sighed, like she was trying to explain algebra to a toddler. “Use your Gyft to supercharge the thing. Then throw it at those goons.”

“And you might want to do it soon.” Miranda gestured toward the villains, twenty feet away from us. They were launching their attack.

“CHARGE!” screamed one of the clones, surging forward. The rest followed.

Focusing my mind, I shut out the roar of the clones’ jet packs. A jolt of energy coursed through my chest and down my arms. I threw the section of plaster material and watched as it arced high into the air, and then—

KA-BOOOOM!

The blast was even bigger than I’d expected. It sent the villains scattering in every direction. Shock waves shook the platform with such force that it snapped loose on one side. The ground beneath my feet suddenly tilted at a dangerous angle. Miranda and I grabbed hold of the railing, but Sophie was already off balance from the explosion. She lost her footing and slid farther and farther toward the edge.

I released my grip and dove after her, stretching out as far as I could, reaching until I grabbed hold of her hand.

For a split second, I had her. Unfortunately, nobody had
me
. Grasping Sophie with one hand, I clawed at the platform with the other, but there was nothing to stop the pull of gravity. My fingers slipped over the platform, and we both tumbled over the side.

I knew what was going to happen next. Without a jet pack or hover scooter—without anything to keep me from falling—there was only one possibility.

Splat
.

Sophie spiraled downward beside me. At least I wasn’t going to die alone.

That was when I caught a glimpse of Captain Justice’s face. Relief rushed through my entire body. He’d arrived just in time. Like always. And now we were both saved.

Except something was off.

Captain Justice had a big head, but not
that
big. The face looking out at us was huge. And another thing I noticed … he wasn’t moving. Beside his face, bright silver letters glittered in the early-morning sunlight.

I read each line of text as I plummeted past it.

Hangin’ with Justice
A superheroic new reality series
Premiering this fall

It wasn’t Captain Justice. It was a billboard.

The enormous advertisement must’ve still been under construction, because a few panels were missing. Sections of rope hung down where the rest was being installed.

Reaching out, I grabbed one of the ropes. It lurched, then twisted. Sophie gripped my shoulders, and we slid downward, landing with a crash on a platform at the bottom of the billboard.

I glanced up at the three-story-tall picture of Captain Justice, ropes swaying down from the edges of the advertisement. He hadn’t rescued us, but his billboard sure had come in handy.

“Sophie?” I gasped.

Even though we were no longer falling, her arms gripped me tightly. Our faces were only inches apart. Her skin glowed brightly, and the lights from a million flashing advertisements swam in her blue-gray eyes.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

She nodded, speaking in a distant voice. “I am now.”

The shock must’ve worn off a moment later, because Sophie let go of me suddenly and turned away.

“We should … uh—help the others,” she said quickly. “Looks like Multiplier’s cloned himself a few more times.”

Sophie was right. There were even more purple and black supervillains than before. But there was something
different about the new clones. They looked … clumsy. One wobbled unsteadily in the air, as if unsure how his jet pack worked. Another kept bumping into a flashing advertisement like a moth knocking against a lightbulb.

“What’s wrong with them?” Sophie asked.

“No idea.” I watched as one of the clones accidentally rammed into another, sending them both tumbling toward the ground. “They’re less coordinated than the others.”

“But why?”

I shook my head. “Maybe clones get less effective over time. Like batteries.”

“But then why are some of them still in such good shape?” She pointed to other Multipliers. And it was true. Some of them showed way more skill than others. Three of them were chasing after Milton. Above, Miranda was alone on the billboard platform, Multipliers buzzing around her menacingly.

“We’ve got to help them,” Sophie said.

We decided to split up. She would take the clones below us, and I’d take the ones above. As Sophie hopped around the edge of the awning to make her way to the street, I grabbed hold of the nearest rope. I climbed up the length of the billboard and was almost level with Captain Justice’s left nostril when I saw something that nearly made me lose my grip.

One of the Multipliers had spotted me.

My chest thumped with fright. Hanging there, I was easy prey. The villain made a U-turn and streaked through
the air in my direction. I braced myself, but the impact never came.

He missed me by about four feet.

“Oooops!”
the villain said in a dull voice, soaring past.

I exhaled. The clone was a total klutz.

But he wasn’t through with me. Wobbling in the air, he made his unsteady progress back toward me. I could tell right away that he was flying too low to cause any danger. Not that I was safe just yet. It was only a matter of time before some of his clone buddies came along to help out. And they’d have better aim. I wasn’t about to just hang there, waiting for them to show up.

If I wanted to survive, I needed to act.

As the villain rocketed beneath me, I released my grip on the rope. For a moment, I was plummeting through the air. Then I landed on his back, slamming into his jet pack.

The clone let out a startled cry. He twisted from side to side, but I held tight—one slip was enough to get burned by the flames shooting out of his pack.

It was kind of like riding a bull in a rodeo. Except in this case, the bull was a dim-witted clone. And instead of being in a rodeo arena, we were flying a hundred feet above Times Square.

The more the clone shook and jolted, the tighter I held on. And after a while, I even figured out how to control his movements. Pulling on the back of his mask made him veer upward. Pushing his head toward the ground caused him to swoop down. And if he tried to resist, all it took
was a little jolt of spontaneous combustion to shock him into obedience.

Now that I had my own personal clone transportation system, I was tempted to take a test flight around New York. But I didn’t know how much longer the others would hold up against the Multipliers they were fighting. Milton came running out of a tourist shop, trailed closely by a clone in an “I
NY” T-shirt. Miranda was swinging down scaffolding toward ground level, pursued by more clones.

When I spotted nFinity, I knew he was the one in the greatest danger. Overwhelmed by the sheer number of Multipliers teaming up against him, he’d been knocked off his hover scooter and was fighting with five clones in the street. One of them restrained nFinity’s arms behind his back, and the others crowded close in a violent mob.

The clone I was riding yelped as I tugged sideways on his mask. We set a course for nFinity. But getting there wouldn’t be quite so easy. A couple more Multipliers were trailing us.

We veered to the right, and the two clones followed. When we neared the
Hangin’ with Justice
billboard, I directed the clone sideways so that he swiped the billboard, knocking it loose from the building it was stuck to. The two Multipliers behind us tried to swerve out of the way, but it was too late. The Captain Justice billboard smacked them out of the air like an enormous flyswatter.

Steering my clone back toward nFinity, I saw that the situation had only worsened. Even more clones had joined
the fight. One of them pulled out a plasma pistol and aimed it right for nFinity’s chest.

I had to get to nFinity—
now
.

I gave the clone I was riding a shock and felt an immediate boost in speed. Wind slammed my face. The scenery of Times Square blurred around me.

We were nearly at street level when the villain I was riding decided he’d had enough of being my personal transportation system. Before I had a chance to react, he unlatched himself from the straps of his jet pack and dropped away.

As the clone slipped out of my grip, I was left holding his jet pack. Except, without any way to control it, it wasn’t much of a jet pack at all. The rocket propulsion sputtered out. I still had so much momentum that I continued racing forward—even without jets roaring beneath me. Like a bowling ball, I slammed right through the pack of Multipliers.

My sudden intrusion caused enough of a disturbance for nFinity to free himself. The moment before I smashed into the pavement, he grabbed hold of the jet pack, slid his arms through the straps, and activated the propulsion engine. With a sudden jolt upward, we were flying again.

Instead of clutching the clone’s back, I’d hitched a ride on nFinity.

We rose into the air, high enough for me to survey the scene below. It looked like the rest of the team had gained the upper hand. An entire group of Multipliers was sprawled out, unconscious, in the street beside a glowing
Sophie. Milton had captured a couple more in another of his nets.

Just as the police moved in to make arrests, the clones began to vanish. One moment they were there, and the next … gone. Except for one: a single purple and black supervillain, racing through an intersection. Behind him, Miranda was in pursuit.

“Over there.” I pointed at the chase. “That must be the real Multiplier. All the other clones just disappeared.”

I held tight as nFinity steered in their direction, flying past a bright array of advertisements, and twisting between buildings. But by the time we reached Miranda, Multiplier was gone.

nFinity and I landed on the sidewalk beside Miranda. Even after releasing my grip and standing on steady ground, my legs still felt wobbly and my heart hammered in my chest.

“What happened?” nFinity asked.

“I lost him.” Miranda stomped a foot against the sidewalk. “He escaped in a cab.”

I looked out at the street, a flood of yellow cabs streaming away from us. When I turned back the way we’d come, I flinched. Hordes of people were rushing in our direction. This time, it wasn’t Multiplier and his clones, though. These people had microphones and cameras.

We were being mobbed by journalists.

I assumed they wanted to talk to nFinity. He was the famous one, after all. But as the journalists neared, it looked like they had someone else in their sights.

Me.

A video camera jammed into my shoulder. A microphone nudged my nose. Questions came at me from all directions.

“Where’d you learn to ride a clone on a jet pack?”

“Who designed your uniform?”

“You saved nFinity’s life. How does that feel?”

The light of a camera’s flash blinded me. I looked to nFinity and Miranda for help, but they’d vanished in the crowd.