Other People's Heroes (The Heroes of Siegel City) (29 page)

“You’re
insane
!” Spectrum wrenched himself from Hotshot and sent out a flash that temporarily blinded us both. When my eyes cleared there were dozens of Spectrums standing on the rooftop.

“That one,” I said, pointing to the only one that didn’t
feel
artificial. Hotshot slammed him again and this time he went down fast.

“Hey, ‘Shot! I think I see the Arachnid headed this way. Is he holding a
camera
?”

When the Arachnid crested the building a minute later, he didn’t find a beaten Spectrum and two fugitives. He found me, a Spectrum hologram wrapped around my body, while the real Spectrum and Hotshot lay invisible.

“You won
’
get away,” he moaned. “Why’re you doin’ this?”

“You’ll thank us later,” I said, and we both took off, leaving him there.

“He’s right about one thing, Josh,” Hotshot said. “We can’t run forever. We can’t even leave the
city
thanks to Mental Maid.”

“Maybe... no. That woman’s been through enough. Only as a last resort. Is there anyone
you
trust to hide us for a while?”

I thought about it for a long moment. “Yeah,” I said. “There just might be.”

JUST THOUGHT WE’D DROP IN

I hovered outside the window of Annie’s brownstone, my mask yanked down away from my face. “Are you
sure
this is going to work?” Hotshot asked, drifting above me and constantly glancing about for incoming Capes.

“Have you got a better idea?” I hissed. “Look, Tom’s a good kid, okay. I’d trust him with my life.”

“You sure this isn’t just an excuse to be around when Miss Sinistah gets back?”

“Give me a
little
credit, will you?” I glanced in the window to see Tom sitting at his desk, shuffling through a deck of Cape and Mask cards. Quentin, I gratefully noted, was nowhere to be seen. Softly, hopefully light enough so that only Tom would hear it, I tapped on the glass.

“
Josh
?” he said, opening the window. “What are you doing out
there
?”

“
Hotshot
! And Josh... you’re
Copycat
? But...
you’re
not
dead
!”

“Thanks for noticing. Long story, man.”

“The guy on the news said you two were wanted. He gave us a number to call--”

“Not
this
again. Don’t you trust me, Tom?”

“I... I
thought
I did, but--”

“Tom. I saved your life, for God’s sake!”

“No you didn’t!”

“I
did
. Tom, that was
me
in the Shift costume.”

His face wrapped up in disbelief. “That’s impossible.”

“It’s not. Look, get that ‘Shift’ card you got autographed, I’ll prove it to you.”

As Tom dug the card out of his binder I grabbed a scrap of paper and a pencil from his desk. “Watch,” I said, my hand trembling. I’d never had the most consistent handwriting. I hoped it would be enough now.

“There,” I said, shoving the paper next to the card. I’d written “Shift” on it, copying my earlier autograph as accurately as I could. Tom’s eyes bulged.

“You
are
Shift!” he shouted. “Oh my
God
this is so cool I
knew
you weren’t really a bad guy what’s going on have you been
framed
yeah I’ll bet that’s it are you on the run do you need help what can
I
do?”

“Whoa, Tom! Slow down. And no more coffee for you. Is your sister home yet?”

“Naw, she and mom are still gone. And Quentin went to his
girl
-friend’s house.” His eyes suddenly lit up all over again. “Annie! She’s a Cape too, isn’t she? I
knew
it! I
knew
she was Glamour Girl!”

“Um... not quite. Look, I’ll explain everything, I promise, but let me use the phone first, okay?”

“Oh... all right.”

I picked up the phone (which was next to Quentin’s bed) and dialed Sheila’s number. Tom started offering Hotshot food -- everything from fruit to pot roast. Finally Hotshot agreed to a peanut butter sandwich just to get the kid out of the room for a few minutes.

“Excitable sort, isn’t he?”

“Yeah,” I said, putting the phone down, “but he’s a good one. No answer from Sheila -- she must still be at my place.”

“Unless they found her there,” Hotshot added.

“So what’s our next move?” I asked.

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” he said. “We should be safe enough for now, but it’s really only a matter of time before they find us.”

“So how do I prove I was telling the truth? Blow the Gunk up in front of everyone?”

“That’ll be tough, getting close to him now,” Hotshot said.

“Yeah, I know. God, it’s just so
frustrating
to think about that son of a bitch traipsing around wearing Lionheart’s face.”

“But
how
do we expose the Gunk?”

“Tempting... no, how do we get back in there, get
close
to him, without looking like we’re trying to assassinate Lionheart?”

There was a crash and we both turned our attention to the doorway, where Tom stood over a broken plate with a thick peanut butter sandwich and an empty glass surrounded by a pool of milk with so much chocolate powder in it there was sludge at the bottom.

“You’re going to assassinate
Lionheart
?” Tom gasped.

“No! Tom, it’s not like that,” Hotshot said, but Tom pulled back, shouting directly in his face.

“You’re going to try to kill Lionheart! Get him, Josh! Stop him!”

I let out an exhausted sigh. “You’ve got to trust me, Tom. That guy you saw on the news is
not Lionheart
. He’s a Mask and he’s hurt a
lot
of good people. We’re running away so we can figure out a way to
stop
him.”

As soon as I was done, Tom’s face shifted from rage to shock. “Oh my God. What are you gonna do? Can I help? I’ve got these walkie-talkies--”

“A
good
kid,” I said, “but
way
too excitable.”

Hotshot stared at me, looking considerably astounded.

“What? What is it?”

He did a double-take. “You don’t
see
it?”

“See what?”

“He was ready to hand me my head when he thought I was going to hurt Lionheart, but
you
he trusts like you were Pope Josh Copycat the Fourth! It was the same when you proved you were Shift, his whole
face
changed.”

“So?”

“That’s because
Shift saved his life
, Josh.
You
saved his life.”

I turned this over in my head for just a moment before it clicked. “No--”

“Yeah. He’s one of
us.
Tom Harmon has the Heart of the Lion.”

CAVALRY

It took Tom about ten minutes to get back, and when he did he was practically bounding off the walls. “Sorry I took so long, guys, but I had the toughest time convincing Mom I was tired and wanted to go to bed.”

“I wonder why,” Hotshot said.

“Annie’s staying at our aunt’s house. Mom said she just needed time away.” My throat violently contracted as I wondered if she was, in fact, hiding from
me.
Hotshot must have seen something in my face, because he put a hand on my shoulder.

Tom shook his head. “Nah, ever since he got to be a
teen
ager he stays out until he knows Mom is gonna get mad at him.”

“Good,” I said. “Why don’t you take a seat, man? We’ve got a story to tell you.”

“And it’s not necessarily the nicest story,” Hotshot said, “but you’re a special kid, Tom, and you deserve the truth.”

“But you’ve got to
promise
me you can keep this a secret, Tom. It’s too important for you to talk about to anybody who doesn’t already know.”

He nodded. “Okay. I promise.”

That was all we needed. All three of us knew that Tom Harmon couldn’t possibly break a promise to
me,
even if he didn’t know why.

Hotshot and I explained a lot to Tom -- about how Morrie’s world was set up, about our place and his sister’s place in it. Hotshot told what really happened to Lionheart and I punctuated it with what had happened to me, from the Gunk’s appropriation of Lionheart’s face through the truth about Morrie and Mental Maid (which Hotshot was hearing for the first time) and right through to our escape. And if you were to ask us later why we were sharing so much with a child, it would be because we simply couldn’t keep the truth from someone like us.

“You see how serious this is, Tom?” Hotshot asked when we were done. “If we don’t stop the Gunk, he’s going to have everyone in the world thinking he’s Lionheart.”

“Until he moves to
crush
them,” I said.

“I don’t understand,” Tom said. “Why would they do that in the
first
place? Aren’t
real
heroes enough?”

I turned to Hotshot, giving him a “Do
you
want to field this one?” look.

“Just because fights are scripted doesn’t mean the spirit isn’t real, Tom,” Hotshot said.

“And just because someone catches a Mask, that doesn’t make him a hero,” I added. “How many bad guys has the Gunk fought in the past ten years?”

“But... why
me
?” Tom asked. “Why are you telling
me
all of this? Is it just because you have a crush on my sister?”

Hotshot snickered and I felt my cheeks flush. “What, is
everybody
talking about that? No, Tom, it’s a lot more complicated than that.”

“Try me. I can handle it.”

“I know you can,” I said.

And for the first time in my life, I explained to someone what the Heart of the Lion meant. Tom nodded as he listened, keeping a smile on his face. It wasn’t a look of realization -- it was more like something he had always known was finally being confirmed.

He sat down at his desk and began flipping through his playing card binder. “So you guys need to find a way to get past a whole punch of brainwashed good guys to get to one bad guy, right?”

“In a nutshell,” Hotshot said.

“Took us twenty minutes,” I laughed. “Leave it to the kid to encapsulate the whole situation perfectly in one question.”

“When I’m playing the card game,” he said, “and my guys are outnumbered, the only way I can beat the
bad
guy is to hold him off until I pull more
good
guys out of the deck.”

“A good thought,” Hotshot said, “but who can we call in as the cavalry? Every superhuman in the city is under Gunk’s spell, except for the two of us.”

Tom turned another page and I saw two rows of older-looking, yellowed cards that leapt from the plastic at me. One of them I had seen before. The rest...

“No, ‘Shot,” I said. “Not
every
superhuman. Just the
active
ones.”

There were six cards on this page, all artificially aged, labeled “Vintage Series.” The first one was Lionheart, the card Tom had shown me the last time I’d visited him. The other cards completed the set.

Card two featured a man in gleaming silver-and-blue chainmail with a red tunic and a white star. He had no powers, according to the body text on the card, but was a master swordsman and skilled in almost every martial art. His shield had served as an inspiration to American servicemen in every war since the 1900's began, until he vanished after Lionheart was gone. He was the Defender.

The next card showed a flying man in black, red and brown. The one-foot warrior had a pair of wings, like an angel, but a razor-sharp pair of talons that could be brutal in combat. A brilliant scientist, the card said, his intellect was only rivaled by his rage at the injustices of the world. He was the Condor.

The card after that featured a woman in an identical costume, but her color scheme was orange, yellow and white. Her wings were not as harsh and her hands had no blades. Her calm demeanor and boundless compassion was a tempering influence -- not only to her husband, Condor, but to all who met her. She was called Oriole.