School for Sidekicks (17 page)

I was about to tell him I didn't need anything when my stomach made a sad little whining noise, triggered apparently by the mention of food. “All right, thanks.”

“There's no need to thank me. Feeding you is part of my job if you're going to be my sidekick—and I think you are, since that's the best way to stick it to Captain Commanding.” As we crossed into the kitchen, Foxman snapped his fingers three times quickly. “Before I forget again, Denmother, this is my new intern, Evan Quick, code name, Meerkat. He has level-three clearance as of this moment. Make him feel at home.”

“Yes, sir.” The voice was clean and clear and mechanical, utterly devoid of any human intonation. “How may we accommodate you, Master Quick?”

I didn't know what to tell it. “Dinner?”

“Cold or hot?”

“Hot? What can you make?”

“American, Chinese, Indian, Italian, and Thai provide the bulk of the food that Foxman normally eats, but I can offer other options based on my most common ingredients. I can also send out for further ingredients if needed, but that will increase production times to levels beyond the optimal parameters established by my programming.”

“Pizza?”

“Excellent choice and one of my specialties. Size and ingredients? Style? Spicy, standard, or white?”

“I dunno, twelve-inch pepperoni and mushroom? Spicy, Chicago style? Can you do that?”

“Of course.”

Robotic arms extended themselves from the central counter, pulling ingredients out of the huge stainless steel fridge, and utensils and dishes from various cabinets. They began assembling a pizza for me. I was entranced, and would happily have sat there to watch the whole thing if Foxman hadn't tapped me on the shoulder.

“Come on, this'll take a while. Let me show you the rest of the place.”

As he led me through the manufactory, I noticed a quilt wrapped around a breadbox-size object on one of the consoles. Curious, I moved closer. Faint voices seemed to be coming from within.

“What's that?” I pointed at the quilt.

Foxman looked down at his feet as a blush spread across his cheeks. “Nothing much, Foxsnooper. It's a multiband communications monitor, descrambler, and code breaker. I could do better now.” He didn't say anything more, but he didn't move on either, just kept looking at his feet.

“Why the blanket?”

“I got tired of listening to it, but couldn't quite bring myself to shut it off either.” He sighed and picked a half-full can of MaskerAde off a nearby workbench, idly rolling it between his hands. “Oh, go ahead and take the stupid quilt off already. We both know you're going to do it as soon as I turn my back if I don't let you do it now. We might as well get it over with.”

I lifted the blanket, exposing a streamlined black-and-red box fronted with a screen and a fold-down keyboard. The faint voice I'd heard earlier came through clearly now, an OSIRIS agent—identified by a crawl at the top of the screen—detailing the escape of some Hood called the Fromagier. It didn't sound all that interesting, so I tuned it out as I sat down and looked over the equipment.

A double row of function keys across the top of the keyboard were labeled things like “Local police band” and “OSIRIS scrambled” and “Scan for keywords.” The last of those was currently lit up. So was another, marked “Signal anomalies.” The screen displayed an overhead map-view of Heropolis sprinkled with hundreds of colored dots spanning the entire rainbow. A large X on the map in the Summit Hill area clearly showed our own location.

As I watched, a bright red dot appeared on the screen perhaps eight blocks from our current location and began blinking. When it did so, the voice coming out of the monitor switched from the OSIRIS report to the smooth mechanical tones of Foxman's Denmother.

“Point seven-two-two second alarm system carrier interrupt at grid point three-three-one-seven —Spinnaker residence. News article cross-reference indicates J. P. Spinnaker and family are vacationing on the family yacht in Dubai. Interrupt time is consistent with a computerized alarm bypass device manufactured by Dactolory Systems Inc. Odds of break-in in progress seventy-eight percent.”

Foxman took a sip of his drink, then made a face. “Flat, ugh.”

“Aren't you going to do something about that?” I pointed at the scanner.

He shrugged. “I'm sure the local police can handle one little break-in.”

The computer spoke again. “Highly unlikely, sir. Police band monitoring shows no calls relating to Spinnaker house. Cross-checking to the private security firm in charge of monitoring the alarm system likewise shows no activity.”

Despite the inherently emotionless nature of Denmother's tone, I thought I detected a hint of reproach there.

“We've got to do something!” I jumped out of my chair, looking around for options.

“Really?” asked Foxman, his expression doubtful and sad. “Really?”

I couldn't believe how outraged I felt at his indifference. “We're Masks. We fight crime. It's what we do. Come on!”

He sighed and tossed back the rest of his MaskerAde. “All right, if you insist.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Foxmobile's through the far door—we'll need it if we're going to get there in time.”

The leather walls in the garage were pool-table green and studded with heavy brass nail ends. The car was exactly as it always appeared in the vids and comics, a low-slung bright red wedge that shared the fox-head styling of all Foxman's gear. As I admired the car, Foxman pushed a button on his wrist, opening the gull wing doors. He climbed in on the right side. It wasn't until I got in on the left and discovered myself behind the steering wheel that I realized he'd chosen the passenger seat.

As the doors hissed closed I turned to Foxman. “What's going on? I can't drive.”

He shrugged. “I'm a has-been, and you're the one who wants to fight crime. In my book that means you're driving. Well, unless you'd rather turn around and go back to your pizza?”

“I'm thirteen! I don't even have a learner's permit!”

“It's really not all that hard, or shouldn't be for a hotshot young Mask fresh from the AMO. Gas pedal's on the right, brake's on the left. Steering wheel's in the middle. If you've ever played Mask Racers on your game console, you know the rest. But, it's up to you.” He gestured at a box on the dashboard, his expression mocking. “Blow in the tube and go stop a crime, or turn around and let Denmother get your dinner.”

“I do have a couple hundred hours in Mask Racers,” I ventured.

He reached over and hit a small black button beside the steering wheel. The big leather-covered garage door started to crank itself upward. “Then it's like you've already driven the Foxmobile dozens of times, isn't it? Are you going to take us out, or what?”

It was the “or what?” that got me. It had such a sneer in it that I couldn't turn away, even if my heart was beating a million beats a second and I wanted to roll down the window so I could barf. So, I didn't tell him that I'd only ever played the Foxmobile in the races that required it for unlocks, or that I drove the Commanding Car the rest of the time. I didn't mention how terrified I was. I just blew into the tube and hit the gas when the engine started. The seat kicked me in the backside, and padded steel restraints dropped down in place of seat belts as we shot forward along another tunnel. The stone walls blurred around us.

“How fast are we going?” I squeaked.

“Speedo's on the lower left.” Foxman sounded bored.

“One hundred and thirty!?”

“Might want to tap the brakes before we hit the street. But only a tap, mind, or we'll spin into the wall.”

There was a horrible grinding screech, and we slowed remarkably as I stomped on the brake, fishtailed into the wall and then slid fifty feet diagonally, dragging the corners of the car along the walls all the way. The speedometer was reading thirty-five when we finally straightened out a moment before I noticed the brick wall at the end of the tunnel a few yards ahead—

Brick wall at the end of the tunnel!!!

I screamed and stomped the brake again. We slid into the wall anyway … and right on through without any sense of impact, or raining bricks, or anything. A split second of darkness and then we were skidding out into the end of a small tree-lined cul-de-sac with a concrete retaining wall suddenly visible in the rearview camera. What. The…?

“Holographic projection,” said Foxman. “With a real concrete-surfaced steel plate underneath, but that opens automatically whenever the Foxmobile is close enough. Oh, and don't worry about the scrapes in the armor and paint,” he added sarcastically. “It's only a few thousand dollars worth of damage and I can always fix it up tomorrow. Also, you might want to actually start moving, if you're planning to
catch
the bad guys. Gas is on the right. Don't push it so hard this time, unless you
want
to engage the rocket assist again.”

I didn't run into anything else and I did eventually get us to the blinking marker on the on-board map system, but that's about all the good I have to say about the next few minutes. As we rolled into the long driveway of the Spinnaker mansion, I glanced over at Foxman, who hadn't made eye contact since I bounced off the wall. After the way he'd mocked me up to this point I didn't want to talk to him again, but I'd never done anything like this before. Not for real anyway.

“What now?” I finally asked.

“Push the blue button on the left side of the console,” he said in the same bored tone he'd used earlier.

I looked around and found the button, a palely glowing circle labeled
FOXDAR.
When I hit it, the central display screen blinked several times, then shifted to a sort of ghostly schematic view of the house ahead of us. Two transparent figures—outlined in red—were busily pulling stuff out of what looked like it might be a safe and stacking it on the floor … maybe. The view was hazy and small.

Foxman took a sip from his umpteenth MaskerAde, then leaned forward and tapped a virtual button on the right side of my screen. A menu opened over the picture.
MAP PROBABLE ESCAPE ROUTE
was the top line, and he selected it before the others had a chance to register. A green path marked itself out inside the building and 85%
PROBABILITY
flashed across the screen. It started at the burglars and ended at a window on the ground floor.

“Select the exit window in the diagram,” said Foxman, settling back into his seat.

I touched a finger to the screen and was answered with “glass removed.”

“Drive us around back.”

So I did that, parking us a few yards from the window with the cutaway pane. Then, under Foxman's direction, I pushed the button marked
FOXAMELEON MODE
and we settled in to wait. We weren't there long before a couple of black nylon duffels came sailing out to land on the ground. A moment after that, the first of the two burglars followed, a slightly tubby white man in his fifties. I reached for my door handle.

“No!” Foxman spoke quietly but sharply. “Don't be a fool. Wait till the second one comes out. Then push the big red shiny button.”

I was about to ask what big red shiny button, when I saw that the middle third of the screen had become a glittering red circle with the legend
APPREHEND FELON?
in black across the center. As the second burglar—pretty much a skinnier, seedier version of the first—came out the window, I hit the button.

Something low and in front of me clunked. Twin streams of scarlet foam shot from somewhere near the headlights, hitting both men and covering them in sparkling goo from about mid chest down. Before either of them could do much more than yell startled obscenities, the foam expanded like a marshmallow in a microwave. In less than two seconds flat both men were encased from the shoulders down in rigid bricks of glittering foam. More foam stuck the bags in place.

I reached for my door handle again.

“No, stay in the car.”

“Why?” I was confused. “Do I need to hit another button?”

“Nope, but you do need to drive us back to the Den now.”

“What about the burglars?”

“What about them? Denmother will phone in an anonymous tip as soon as we're clear. After that, the police will collect them. We're done. We might even make it back before your pizza goes cold.”

“But—but—don't we have to
talk
to the police or the press or anything?”

He tilted his head to one side and raised a very skeptical eyebrow. “You're a smart kid, but a little too earnest yet, so I'm going to walk you through this once. But only once, so pay attention. I am—not to put too fine a point on it—a has-been whose Mask license is, well, not quite suspended, but not exactly in good standing either.”

He pointed at me. “You are a wet-behind-the-ears newbie, with no driver's license, no Mask license, and as yet unprocessed internship papers. You are also illegally and very badly operating a car that both the Defense Department and OSIRIS classify as a military assault vehicle. Add in the fact that as your mentor I had to sign about four hundred pages of consent forms swearing to god and the AMO that I wouldn't allow you within a thousand meters of a crime scene before your fifteenth birthday, and what exactly do you think the police are going to do when they find us here with those guys?” He pointed at the criminals.

I swallowed hard. “Arrest us?”

“Bingo.” Foxman touched the tip of his nose, and it was only then that I realized he'd never even bothered to close his mask. “Now, take us home.”

 

14

Don't Tell Anyone Official

I didn't say another word, just blew into the tube, started the car, and, with much screeching and jerking, got us turned around and headed out. As we pulled into the cul-de-sac that led back to the Den, I heard police sirens start wailing in the distance. I'd intended to pull over and have a chat with my new “mentor” then and there, but decided to wait until we got off the street. Ten feet past the entrance to the tunnel, I stepped on the brake and brought us to a slow stop—I was already getting better at this.