Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain (62 page)

Mom leaned forward in her chair, folding her arms over her lap as she stared at the screen. It failed to offer anything more interesting than distance shots of the library. “I believe they were sending a message. Not to us. The superheroes have accepted them. Now the supervillains have to as well.”

Dad looked over at her and frowned. “Do you think they gave the Orb to Spider?”

She nodded. “I think so. I’ll contact the Expert and have him contact Spider. It would be unlike either of them to lie about this.”

Dad stared at Mom for a few more seconds, then the screen, and then sighed and pushed himself up out of his chair. “I have to get going. Echo is sure the bomb isn’t a bomb, but, whatever it is, it’s powerful and he doesn’t want to move it. He thinks it may be Conqueror technology.”

Her face completely expressionless, Mom mused, “Three associations with Conqueror tech in a week. That’s a bad pattern.”

Dad came down hard on that idea. “One thing Spider wouldn’t do is sell us out to the Conquerors. Judging by their performance today, neither would The Inscrutable Machine.”

Slowly, Mom nodded, a thoughtful frown replacing her scarier Audit face. “No. They’ve made that very clear. They’re not crazy or rogue. They’re thirteen-year-old professional supervillains. We have to accept it.”

I’d had enough. I walked out of Dad’s office, out the kitchen door, and leaned against the house to stare at the road. The Inscrutable Machine were still supervillains. More supervillains than ever. What had I accomplished today?

The front door clattered as Dad stepped out. He glanced over at the mailbox as he passed, and with a curious frown picked up a pink envelope and tossed it to me. “Mail, Pumpkin.”

No return address or postmark. “Penelope Akk,” in elegant formal script. It looked like an envelope for a party invitation.

It was another letter from Spider.

While my Dad climbed into the car, then pulled out onto the street, I opened up the envelope and read the letter inside.

Bad Penny,

You most likely expect me to be angry. On the contrary. I owe you a rare and sincere apology. I treated The Inscrutable Machine as children, and you punished me for my hubris, reminding me why respect and courtesy are the best ways to conduct a professional relationship. It is true that I got what I wanted today, but I am very aware that I got it only by luck. In every way that’s important, you bested me.

I hope that you will be willing to forgive me, and will work for me by your own willing choice in the future. You have a great future ahead of you as supervillains, and I would like to be part of it.

Sincerely,

Spider

I laid my head back against the bricks. What had I accomplished today? I’d saved a lot of people from being hurt, set yet another record for wildest thing I’d ever seen in my life, had my first kiss, made the person blackmailing me beg for forgiveness instead, had a fantastic amount of fun, and made myself a legend.

I hadn’t intended to be a legend as a supervillain, but now The Inscrutable Machine had a reputation to maintain, and a lot of fun to have in the process.

I felt good. I felt so good, I had to laugh.

“HA! AH HA HA HA HA HA HA!”

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Richard Roberts
has fit into only one category in his entire life: ‘writer.’ But as a writer he’d throw himself out of his own books for being a cliche. He’s had the classic wandering employment history – degree in entomology, worked in health care, been an administrator and labored for years in the front lines of fast food. He’s had the appropriate really weird jobs, like breeding tarantulas and translating English to English for Japanese television. He wears all black, all the time, is manic-depressive, and has a creepy laugh.

As for what he writes, Richard loves children and the gothic aesthetic. Most everything he writes will involve one or the other, and occasionally both. His fantasy is heavily influenced by folk tales, fairy tales, and mythology, and he likes to make the old new again. In particular, he loves to pull his readers into strange characters with strange lives, and his heroes are rarely heroic.