Sidekicks (24 page)

I'm holding the side of my head. I try to block his punches, but I'm shaken … woozy … my head hurts. His left jab hits my cheek. I hit the ground, but immediately spring up again and catch him with a roundhouse kick, square in the face. He staggers back. He wasn't expecting that.

“Well, looks like you've got a little fight in you yet!” he says. “You're impressing me, Scott … and you haven't asked me any stupid ‘Why are you doing it?' questions.”

“It's obvious why you're doing it,” I say. “You're just another lowlife scumball looking for money.”

“Ha! It's adorable that you think I shouldn't be proud of that. Our battles move product, and companies pay money for that. Lots of it. How else is a superhero supposed to make some scratch? Do you think the public wants to pay for all the good deeds we do? Huh? No! They want us to save them, but they want us to do it for free.”

“Yeah! Because we're heroes!”

He laughs and shakes his head. “Scott, heroes still need to buy houses. We still need food. That stuff ain't free, kid. Come on, man, don't make me lose respect for you.”

“Hey, psychopath,” I say, “I couldn't care less if you respect me or not. You know, most kids at school laugh at you. That whole ‘I am the darkness' thing is just a big joke. And that whisper-growl you think is so mysterious. HA! Sooo lame …”

“Oh yeah … like I'm going to care what a bunch of brainless little schoolkids think.”

“You care. Look at you. You're twitching. You know what they call you? Do you? They call you Phantom Jerkface?”

“Whoa, Scott. You're on fire!” Trent says. “You figured out that I'm an egocentric sociopath, so you preyed on my vanity! And it stung! Ooo! Very impressive! Buuuut, I guess now it's my turn.” He pauses, a malicious smile creeping across his face. “I watched your little girlfriend die. She suffered. A lot.”

My jaw clenches, but I don't yell. My fist quivers, but I don't punch him. He's probably lying. He's trying to get under my skin, get me to make a mistake, but I'm
not going to let him. I think of Louis, and focus on what he taught me.

“Don't worry, though,” Trent says. “I made sure I gave her a little kiss good-b—”

CRACK
.

My right fist hits him. I honestly don't remember throwing it. It must've been pretty fast, because he didn't see it coming … for that matter, neither did I. The only reason I know I hit him is because my knuckles are tingling and his lip is bleeding.

He looks worried. How did I hit him? He's supposed to be faster than me. “Ooo … Bright Boy is angry! You're snarling!” he says, his look of doubt gone. “Who knows? Maybe if you were this fired up earlier, you might've been able to save her … but, oh well.”

I feel something snap in my head. I can even hear the sound it makes: a loud
crack
, like a baseball bat breaking in half. “Say something else,” I say. “Please.”

“Ha! Why? Because you think your righteousness is going to give you power? Hm? Fine. You know what her dying words wer—”

CRACK
. His head snaps back again, and a little blood dribbles out from the corner of his mouth.

“No,” I say. “And neither do you.”

The look of doubt is back. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Sure I do,” he says, trying to recover the advantage. “I was there. She said, ‘Scott is a gullible little—'”

WHAM!

OK, that one wasn't me. A blast from above us nails Trent and sends him flying backward. My heart skips a little. I turn to look. Sure enough, it's Dr. Chaotic in his propulsion boots and he has some sort of complex-looking weapon pointed at Trent. He's alone.

“You idiot!” Trent yells at Chaotic. “I knew it! I knew you'd throw it all away for that stupid little girl!”

Chaotic fires his weapon again, but this time Trent is able to avoid it. He leaps and lands a flying hammer punch to Chaotic's face, sending him flying off at a weird angle. Chaotic lands on the roof with a sickening thud. Trent races over to finish him off, but Chaotic is up again and waiting for him. Chaotic grabs him and flings him off the roof. Chaotic then zips over to me.

“Is Jake there?” he asks.

“Yes,” Jake says in my head. I'm guessing that Chaotic can hear it in his head, too, because he nods. “Got it! Scott, we have to go.”

“No, wait!” I yell.

“No time!” Jake yells back. “Go! Get off the roof.”

“No! Enough with this psychic garbage!” I grab Dr. Chaotic. I shake him. He doesn't resist. “Is she still alive? TELL ME SHE'S STILL ALIVE!”

His eyes look puffy. His face looks tired and empty, as if he's spent the last of his energy and is now just running on fumes. “Bear always told you the truth,” he says.

“Wait … What? What are you—”

“And he always will.”

Jake starts yelling. “SCOTT!”

“What are you talking about?!” I yell at Chaotic. “Is Louis still alive? Is Allison? Tell me!”

“SCOTT! GET OUT OF THERE RIGHT—”

Too late. Trent rams Dr. Chaotic and me, knocking us over like paper dolls. Trent is moving so fast, he skids on the roof, stops himself, and turns and charges again. Chaotic springs up and faces him like a bullfighter. He pulls out a gun … the same dart gun they used on me … and Allison. Trent stops.

“Scott?” Jake asks.

“Yeah.”

“Oh good … you're still alive … NOW GET IT IN GEAR!”

“Not yet.”

Trent is staring at Dr. Chaotic and me with a sick grin on his face. He chuckles, but it's grim; there's no humor in it. “Would you look at this: my greatest enemy and my old sidekick, together. Pretty ironic … and convenient. Well, for me a least. See, after I kill you both, all I have to do is say you offed each other. Might have to move your bodies around, but it's not like I haven't done
that
before.”

Chaotic lifts his dart gun. “You're not killing anyone else.”

Phantom laughs. “HA! Who's going to stop me? You? You've got the smarts, Edward, but you're lacking in everything else. Maybe … just maybe … a triple-plus could've stopped me … your daughter perhaps … but, well, we all know how that turned out.”

I look over at Chaotic. He's not saying anything. His face has gotten tight. Tears start to form in his eyes.

I turn to Trent. “Allison was—?”

“A triple plus?” Trent says. “That's right, Bright Boy! In fact, there are only two triple pluses in the whole world—right, Edward?”

I look back at Chaotic. Tears are streaming down his face.

“But Allison's strictly past tense, isn't she?” Trent says. “So, I guess that leaves just me.”

What?! I look over. Chaotic's eyes are as wide as mine.

“You?” Chaotic says.

Trent does a little bow. “Strongest, fastest, smartest. So smart that I trumped
you
… I'm telling you now because, well, I want the last thought in your head to be that I outsmarted you, the great Dr. Chaotic. Of course, the second-to-last thought in your head is that I killed your daughter. Not a great week for the ol' doctor, huh?” He chuckles.

Chaotic presses a button on his forearm. There's an electrical hum as something under his outfit powers up. He starts to glow.

Trent laughs. “Oh, this should be fun. Hope you charged your batteries, Edward. Oh, and say hello to your sweet daughter for me when you see her again … in about four minutes.”

I've had enough. Triple plus or not, I'm going to knock Trent's face off his skull. I cock my fists and start toward him, but before I get more that one step, Dr. Chaotic grabs me. “He's mine,” he says, then flings me off the roof.

All I manage to get out is a quick “Hey—” before I'm airborne.

Jake is immediately in my head. “Scott. Listen to me. Chaotic threw you off the roof because you're the only hope of beating Phantom. You have to head south, right now.”

“Can I not die first?” I ask.

“Sure. But hurry up.”

I grab FP-75, swing myself around, and fling myself onto the nearest rooftop. I can hear the sounds of Trent and Chaotic battling behind me. “You and Chaotic had a ‘meeting of the minds,' right?” I ask.

“I know what you're going to ask.”

“Good. Then answer.”

“Allison is not our concern right now. Our concern is keeping you alive and stopping Phantom Justice.”

“Well, maybe I should go back and ask Chaotic myself,” I say.

“Stop being such an idiot, OK? He won't be able to hold Phantom off for long.”

“But he has that armor, and a dart gun. Maybe he'll—”

“He won't. Phantom's too fast,” Jake says. “Chaotic'll never be able to hit him, even with the enhanced speed of the armor. No, you're it.”

“That whole thing about Louis … what do you think he meant?”

“I don't know. All I do know is that you have to go where I tell you.”

“Fine. Where?”

“Brooklyn … to Dr. Chaotic's lab.”

make it from the Flatiron District across the Manhattan Bridge to Brooklyn. I'm standing on the roof of the DUMBO Arts Center. I turn and look at the Brooklyn Bridge, and Manhattan beyond it. This is Allison's favorite view from the other side. Seeing it now makes me feel empty.

I can picture Allison's face as she looked at it, as if this was the only place on the planet where she could find peace. I remember thinking that I wanted to help her look like that all the time.

I need to find her.

But what if I find her, and she's …

I'm wondering if I really want to know. If she's gone, will I be able to handle it?

“I don't know,” Jake says in my head, “but that's a question for later. Right now, Phantom has to be stopped and the only way to do that is for you to get to the lab.”

“Seriously … you being the voice of my conscience is really surreal.”

“One mile south on Jay Street is the New York City College of Technology. Get there. And hurry up, jerkface. He's coming,” Jake barks in his best bully voice. “Is that better?”

“Oddly enough, yes. Right now, I'll take anything that feels normal, even if it's you being mean to me.”

I turn and start sprinting across rooftops. The moment where my life changes is less than five minutes away. I keep sprinting anyway.

“OK,” I say. “I'm here. At the college. Now what?”

“Find the library building. Go inside.”

“Uh, hello … it's two in the morning. It's closed.”

Jake sighs. “You just got here, from Manhattan, by leaping from rooftop to rooftop. Also, the majority of your thoughts, at this very moment, are directed toward figuring out how to kill Trent when you see him again.
So what exactly is holding you back from breaking into a library: your ability or your morals?”

I head for the ground, spy a building with columns and a telltale library sign on the front, get a running start, then go crashing through the front door. There's no alarm. “Huh. OK … now what? Is there a secret bookshelf or a trapdoor or something?”

“Get in the elevator and press the basement button.”

“Seriously?”

“Do it!”

I do as I'm told. The elevator goes down one floor to the basement.

“Now wait for the doors to open again,” Jake says, “then close.”

“OK.”

“Now quickly, hit the buttons in this order: five-two-four-three-five-four-five-four-three-two-one-three-four-three-four-three-four-five-six-four-three-two-one-one-three-four—”

Jake is rattling off numbers as fast as he can speak them. I stop trying to think about it, because if I think, I'll make a mistake. I just react, pressing the numbers as fast he says them.

“Five-four-one,” Jake says, then stops.

“Is that it?”

“Why? What happened?”

“Nothing,” I say.

“Maybe we got one wrong.”