Sidekicks (23 page)

“It's adrenaline.”

“Adrenaline? Seriously? Come on … there's no way that a shot of adrenaline would kill me.”

He turns his laptop around. There's a picture of a man lying in an alley. “Does he look familiar?”

“Should he?”

“Well, you have fought him roughly a dozen times.”

I look at the picture a little closer, but I can't seem—

“He's a personal trainer. His name is Justin Wheeler. You knew him as Rogue Warrior.”

My mouth hangs open.

“His body was found in an alley downtown earlier today,” Jake says. “He had massive a heart attack. His adrenaline levels had spiked through the roof.”

“He was on steroids.”

“His heart literally exploded in his chest. Steroids wouldn't do that.”

“How do you know this?”

“My dad performed the autopsy.”

“Your father?”

“Not important right now. Look here.” He boxes off the section of the photo that has Warrior's neck in it and magnifies it so it fills the screen. “See that little pinprick right there?”

“Barely.”

“Exactly. If we weren't specifically looking for it, we would have missed it. Sound familiar?”

I put my hand up to my neck. “How did you know to look for it?”

“Again, not important right now. Here's the thing,” Jake says, “the reason you plus/plus, speed and strengths, are the way you are is because you were born with really dense, heavy bones. They're A LOT heavier than normal human bones. Your muscles had to adapt to be stronger, have more elasticity. The older you get, the bigger your bones get, and the stronger and faster you become.”

“Wait … the report said that I get stronger, but not faster.”

He smiles. “You read the report?”

I nod.

“Yeah, well, they got some stuff right,” he says, “but not everything. And that's kind of the way we want it.”

“Who's we?” Before Jake can answer, I say it for him. “I know … not important right now. So … I'm going to get stronger
and
faster than I am now?”

“Yup, but here's the problem: It seems that some of your organs are pretty much regular, old, run-of-the-mill organs. Your heart has somewhat adapted to the additional strain you put on it, but it hasn't completely
adapted. It's still very similar to the heart of an average person, except the average person isn't jumping off buildings or trying to lift a car over their head.”

A light goes on in my head. “So … a shot of adrenaline takes my heart, which is under strain as it is, and pushes it right over the edge.”

“Correct. You just survived your first heart attack,” he says. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks a ton.”

“There was something weird about that dart, though.”

“What?”

“The adrenaline inside was a slow-release formula. Enough up front to take you out of action and give you some of the effects of full-blown cardiac arrest, but not enough to push you over the edge. Now, if you didn't get the antidote, you'd have died within half an hour.”

I shudder.

“But it seems like whoever designed the dart gave you some time to get away,” he says. “Here, take a look at this picture of Warrior again. See how his eyes are distended. His heart looked like a burst water balloon. Whoever hit you didn't give Rogue Warrior the same deal.”

“Who—?

“Well, it's either Phantom Justice or Dr. Chaotic,” Jake says. “They've been working together for years.”

It takes a moment for it to sink in. “Wait—what?! No, they haven't.”

“All right … really quickly, because we need time to figure out our next move,” he says. “Phantom isn't really a superhero like you think he is. He's in it for the money. Large companies hire him to fight battles over their products. He then hires the villains and stages everything. All those battles you've fought over the years? Yeah, those have all been elaborate ads.”

“Wha—no! I wasn't—”

“Don't worry … if I thought you were in on it, we wouldn't be having this conversation. He used you. And now that you and Allison have been stealing the spotlight, it looks like Phantom and Chaotic decided to get rid of you … In fact”—Jake pauses as if a thought just hit him—“I bet they were annoyed about you and Allison at first, but then they saw a way to use it to their advantage.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing pulls in the youth demographic like tragic romance.”

“That's—I don't—that's not—”

Jake turns his laptop around again and flips quickly through a whole file full of pictures. It's like a “greatest hits” collection of Phantom's and my battles. And it doesn't take a genius to see what they all have in common … all the big battles took place near giant signs for products. Champion Motor Company, Can-do Cola, IGO Computers, and a ton of others.

“Yeah, but what—”

“About all the battles you had that didn't involve products?” Jake says. “Those fall into one of two categories: Either someone was auditioning for Phantom Justice, to see if they could win a slot on the roster of villains, or the villain you faced truly believed that the whole ‘villain/superhero' thing was real, and Phantom had to defeat him in order to maintain his reputation. For the last group, Phantom usually recruited the ones who showed promise, and killed off the ones who didn't, so he wouldn't have to deal with them again.”

I start shaking my head. I can't believe this. It was all hitting me too hard and too fast. “No … no …”

“I have one last thing to show you,” Jake says. He clicks a button on his computer and a new picture pops up on his screen. It's a picture of Trent's house. “The explosion that Trent told you about … the one from
Dr. Chaotic's attack … it was a lie. These pictures were taken an hour ago.” He flips through a bunch of pictures of the house. It looks the way it always has.

“He set you up,” Jake says.

I don't want to believe it, but there's no other way to make the events of the past twelve hours add up. And the more I doubt it, the more I resist, the more time I'm wasting.

“So, do you think—”

“That Louis is still alive?” Jake says. “I don't know.”

“Do you think …” I pause, expecting him to finish my sentence. Instead, he pauses.

“I don't know that, either. She's fallen off the grid, so to speak.”

“I have to—”

“I know you do,” Jake says. “You're lucky, though. Finding Allison is part of my plan.”

“I don't know yet,” Jake says in my head.

“So should I stop?”

“No. Keep heading south.”

I'm running across the rooftops of Manhattan, looking for the hidden lab of Dr. Chaotic. I'm restless and keyed up and on the verge of panic. I have this feeling that Allison's still alive, but that she won't be for long … and that I'm the only one who can save her … if I can only find the stupid lab.

“Don't freak out on me, Scott,” Jake says.

“I'm not freaking out!” I yell.

“Right. Obviously.”

“Where is it?” I ask.

“I don't know yet. Dr. Chaotic is the most powerful plus intelligence on the planet. Usually, I can pick something up from him, just floating around in the ether … but right now, I got nothing. He's throwing up some interference, I think.”

“Great! So now what?”

“Where are you?”

“Lincoln Center.”

“Keep moving south,” he says.

“Why south?”

“Just a hunch.”

In about seven minutes, I'm on the roof of the Flatiron Building.

“Scott? Where are you?”

“The Flatiron Building,” I say. “Being a psychic, shouldn't you already know that?”

I hear him sigh. “I'm focusing on other things right now, like Dr. Chaotic and—uh-oh …”

“What?”

“Something is headed right for you!”

“What?!” I yell. “Where? I don't see anything?”

“I don't know yet … it's something big … filled with hate … rage …”

“Phantom Justice! But I don't see him!”

“He sees you.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know!” he yells. “He's almost on you!”

I look around frantically. I don't see anything. I stop … focus … concentrate … close my eyes. A sound … like a sonic boom … from the left … behind me … I roll right, just as Phantom's fist flies through the spot where my head was.

“GRRRRAAAA!” he yells as he smashes right through one of the air-conditioning units on the roof. He's up in half a second.

“Scott! He's there!” Jake yells in my head.

“Yeah! Thanks!”

Phantom comes at me with a flurry of punches of kicks, some of which are coming so fast, I don't even see them. I don't know how, but I manage to avoid all of them.

“Scott!” Jake yells. “What's happening? Are you OK?”

“Jake! Stop! Talking!”

“Sorry!”

Phantom Justice stops trying to hit me. Now he's just swaggering toward me. I back up, trying to keep a distance between us. “Scott, you miserable little twerp. Look at you! You're not dead!” he says, almost cheerfully.
His eyes look mischievous and murderous at the same time. “You've got a little more stamina than I thought!”

He does a quick roundhouse kick. It isn't one of his more powerful ones, but it is fast … so fast that it manages to tag me in the jaw. He tries to follow it up with another kick, but I block it.

“What is wrong with you?!” I yell. “You're Phantom Justice! You're supposed to be a good guy!”

“I am a good guy,” he says. “Just because I want to fire you doesn't make me a bad guy.”

“You're trying to kill me!”

“Hey … you're not a cashier at the grocery store, you know. This is how you get fired from this job. And I would appreciate it if you took it like a man.”

He comes at me in two quick strides, leading with a right cross. He's fast, but I manage to get my guard up. I realize too late that it was a feint. His left foot kicks me in the stomach. I fall over the back of one of the AC units. My head smacks against the ground. I feel like I'm going to puke. I shake my head to clear the cobwebs. He's coming to get me.

“Don't play possum with me,” he says. “Come on!” There's a broken broom handle on the ground right
beside me. I grasp it. He reaches down to grab me, and I slam the piece of wood into the side of his head. The handle shatters. His head snaps to the left and he drops me, but he doesn't fall. I somersault backward and get into my defense position. He slowly turns his head back toward me. He's smiling.

“Was that supposed to hurt?”

“What is your problem?” I yell at him.

“You keep asking me that, and I thought I already made it clear. My problem is you … has been for a while,” he says. “I mean, after all I've done for you? I took you in. I fed you, clothed you, sent you to the finest school in the city. And this is how you repay me? Hm? By ruining a character that I created?”

“I'm not ‘a character you created.'”

“You're right. You aren't. Bright Boy is. Bright Boy doesn't exist because of you; you exist because of Bright Boy. Got it?”

“Your whole life is a lie!”

He shrugs. “Yeah? So? So's yours, you just don't know it yet. But I wouldn't worry too much about it … you don't have a lot of time left.” He throws a flurry of left and right jabs. I block and avoid, block and avoid, but he's
going too fast. He's too strong. Three catch me in the face.
Bam, bam, bam
. Just like that, and my nose is bleeding.

“Do you want to be a hero?” He snaps out a right. I avoid it, but his left is too fast. It catches me in the ear, sending a bright spike of pain through my whole head. “Or would you rather die a sissy? Your choice.”