A Mutant Named Mizzie (2 page)

“Would you prefer that I leave her in the car with Stanley?” I asked.

“Actually, I would prefer that you take her to the nearest maximum-security prison. Where she belongs.”

“But she’s just a baby.”

“She’s not ‘just a baby.’ She’s a mutant. And she’s getting slobber all over my paperweight.”

“I know it’s a little … unexpected.”

“Unexpected?” Zimmerman shook his head. “It’s career suicide, that’s what it is. Do you have any idea what’ll happen if the press gets wind of this? People want to see superheroes fighting mutants, not playing peekaboo with them.”

“I can’t just have her tossed into some jail cell,” I said. “She hasn’t done anything wrong.”

“Yet,”
Zimmerman prompted. “She hasn’t done anything wrong yet. But she will.”

I stepped forward, flexing a bicep. “If you feel so strongly about this, perhaps it’s time I begin looking for a
new
new business manager.”

Zimmerman shivered, cowering in his chair. Maybe it was the fear of losing his biggest client. Or maybe it was knowing that I had enough power at my fingertips to turn his entire office building to a pile of dust. Either way, he seemed to be experiencing a change of heart.

“Okay, so handing her over to the authorities is a no-go,” Zimmerman began. “I can accept that. No problem.”

“Good.”

I took a seat in the chair beside Mizzie. What an odd turn the day had taken. I’d started off the morning battling mutants, and now I was babysitting one.

It had been years since I’d spent any time around a child this age. Sure, I come into contact with small children all the time. It’s part of the job. Whenever I’m surrounded by adoring crowds, someone inevitably thrusts a baby into my hands. Usually, they want a photo of Captain Justice holding their offspring. Or they want me to autograph it. Either way, I can always hand the child back a moment later. End of story.

But who was I supposed to hand the baby to this time?

It seemed like a lifetime ago that my own daughter, Sophie, had been this young. She’s twelve now, but as mature as someone twice her age. And of course, when
she
was a baby, my wife was still alive.…

“You okay, Cap?”

Zimmerman’s voice cut through my thoughts.

“Just got a little … distracted,” I said, glancing at the floor.

“You know what I think?” Zimmerman said. “I think you need a break. Battling supervillains, new endorsement deals and now a baby mutant to take care of. It’s too much—even for a guy like you. Once everything settles down, you should take a few days off. Why don’t you stay at my new beach house? There’s plenty of space. It’s isolated and ultra-secure—so there’s no need to worry about villains or paparazzi ruining your holiday.”

Zimmerman’s eyes flashed from me to Mizzie.

“But first you need to figure out what you plan to do with it,” he said. “I mean … 
her
?”

I drummed my fingers on the armrest. “That’s an excellent question.”

After we left Zimmerman’s office, Stanley drove us to a nearby Stop ’n’ Save to pick up a few provisions.

When I approached the register, the cashier stared up at me in awestruck silence. A piece of chewing gum dropped out of her wide-open mouth and landed on the magazine she’d been reading a moment before.

I’m not sure what was more surprising for the woman: that the most famous superhero in the world was standing in front of her or that my arms were full of diapers, plastic toys, baby food and wet wipes.

Ordinarily, Stanley did all the shopping. As we’d pulled up to the store, however, Mizzie had spit up all over the seat. I’d volunteered to pick up a few necessities while Stanley took care of the stain. It had been years since my last shopping excursion, and I’d felt a jolt of excitement at the idea. A new adventure! Shopping!

But now I wasn’t so sure. The employee continued to stare at me like I’d beamed down from an alien planet. On top of that, I was unaccustomed to how people behaved at the checkout line. I tried to remain calm.
Just act natural
.

“Greetings, female employee!” Plopping the merchandise in front of the cash register, I reached into my utility belt and removed my wallet. “I shall be purchasing these items! Is credit card an acceptable payment method?”

“Uhhh …” The woman looked even
more
freaked out. She stared at the things I’d dropped in front of her. “You’re getting all … 
this
?”

Suddenly, the earlier conversation with Zimmerman flashed through my memory.
Do you have any idea what’ll happen if the press gets wind of this?
he’d said.
Career suicide
. Those were the words he’d used. And now here I was—buying provisions for a baby mutant. In public!

What if the employee got a glimpse into the SUV? What if she saw the gray-skinned child in the backseat? One anonymous tip to
Super Scoop
was all it would take to send my career down the toilet.

“These items aren’t for me!” I blurted out.

The employee’s eyes moved across the plastic truck and the diapers, then back to where I was standing. “Looks like they’re for a baby.”

“No! I mean—
yes
. They are. But not
my
baby. And certainly not a mutant baby—”

I clapped my hand over my mouth before I could say anything else.

With a confused look on her face, the employee scanned my items and swiped my credit card, then glanced up at me again.

“Paper or plastic?” she asked.

“That’s none of your business!” I boomed, gathering the purchased items into my arms in a flurry.

“Did you enjoy your shopping experience?” Stanley asked as I climbed back into the SUV.

I dumped the diapers and toys and wet wipes onto the floor.

“Just drive,” I said through gritted teeth.

Stanley canceled the rest of my appointments for the day. Until I figured out what to do with Mizzie, the risk of appearing in public was simply too great.

“Well, we can’t return her to her parents,” I said.

“They are most likely in a detention facility,” Stanley agreed from the driver’s seat.

The landscape of farms and hillsides passed outside the windows as he drove. Mizzie was on the seat beside me, napping. Her little gray hand was curled into a fist, her thumb hanging loosely from her mouth.

“She deserves to be raised in a better environment,” I said. “Someplace where she isn’t surrounded by violent, bloodthirsty beasts.”

“In that case,” Stanley said, “perhaps it is a good thing that we found her when we did.”

I watched the baby doze for a few seconds longer. Even with all the disruption she’d caused, I couldn’t help wondering if Stanley had a point.

But what about Zimmerman’s warning? How would the world react if they discovered that Captain Justice was taking care of a mutant? Sure, the child was adorable. But she was also … different. Her skin was the color of a shark. Soon she would have a mouthful of ultra-sharp teeth. Her parents had been locked up for terrorizing innocent citizens.

“What do you think will become of her, Stanley?” I asked. “Is she destined grow up to be like her parents? Like the other mutants I battled?”

“I am afraid I was not programmed to answer that question, sir,” replied the robot.

I stared down at Mizzie’s sleeping form. For a brief moment, in the dim light of the vehicle’s interior, she looked like any human baby.

When she awoke a few minutes later, her wails filled the interior of the vehicle.

“I think she’s hungry,” I said to Stanley. “Pull over and I’ll feed her.”

Stanley parked the SUV in the parking lot of an abandoned hardware store. I removed a silver spoon from my utility belt and inspected the labels of each baby food bottle.

“How about we sample some apples and peaches?” I suggested.

“Blurph,” said Mizzie.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

Spooning out a little of the squishy food, I held it close to her lips. Mizzie sniffed, then made a face that clearly meant
yuck
.

“Not a fan of apples and peaches, huh?” I said. “No problem. In that case, let’s try the veggie select.”

I offered a spoonful from the other jar, but the reaction was much the same. She wasn’t interested.

“Here comes the armor-plated, titanium-reinforced hover SUV!” I spiraled the spoon toward Mizzie’s mouth. “Coming in for a landing on the rooftop hovercraft port.”

Pressing her lips together tightly, the baby watched as I waved the spoonful of mush in front of her. I felt my frustration rising. But I wasn’t giving up just yet.

“Perhaps I need to disable your defense settings,” I said. “Let me just enter the security
code.”

I poked her chubby gray belly with my finger. Mizzie chuckled. Suddenly, a memory sprang to mind: twelve years earlier, going through this same routine with Sophie when she was a baby.

While Mizzie laughed gleefully, I brought the spoon close to her lips. “That’s better,” I said. “Now open the hatch doors and prepare for the—OUCH!”

Mizzie finally took a bite. But it wasn’t the mush on the spoon she was interested in. It was
me
. I dropped the spoon as Mizzie chomped down on my arm with her single ultra-sharp tooth. My body armor absorbed most of the bite, but not
all
.

“Egad, that
stings
!” I howled in pain. “Release me at once!”

I flapped my arm frantically, but this only seemed to make her clamp down harder.

“She seems to have mistaken you for baby food,” Stanley observed, his pearl-colored eyes glowing with amusement.

“This isn’t funny, Stanley!” I screamed, wildly waving the arm with the mutant attached to it. “Help me before she devours me whole!”

“Certainly, sir.”

The robot reached out and grabbed hold of Mizzie. She giggled as he set her back down on the seat.

“We’ve got to find someone who knows more about this kind of thing.” I rubbed my sore arm. “And I think I know who to call.”

“Who might that be, sir?”

I took another look at the baby. Her eyes sparkled as she laughed.

“Get the Dread Duo on the line,” I said.

As two of the most feared supervillains on earth, the Dread Duo had been my archnemeses throughout much of my career. For years, our interactions had pretty much exclusively involved
us trying to kill, debilitate or capture each other. It wasn’t the healthiest relationship.

But all that had changed recently when we’d found ourselves on the same end of a fight against the evil billionaire Phineas Vex. The altercation had ended with Vex buried beneath a mountain of burning rubble, me discovering that my daughter was friends with the Dread Duo’s son and all of us carpooling back to Sheepsdale.

We hadn’t seen each other since. And now, every time I flew off to thwart another evil plot, there was a worried little part of my brain that wondered whether the Dread Duo was involved. Would we return to being enemies, or were we something else entirely now?

Things were a lot easier when all we had to think about was trying to kill each other.

After sharing our ride, we’d exchanged numbers, though none of us had used them.