by J L Ender
Next time I would not fail.
Chapter 9
Tony did cool down, but it took almost a week.
A week was also how long it took me to recover from our battle. I didn’t catch up on sleep until the weekend, and had to suffer through three long, miserable days of school feeling exhausted. Thanks, insomnia!
I’d made it home that night just as the sun rose. Iron Wraith and I had gone back to his house after the battle. I’d left my armor in the closet under the stairs, already yearning to wear it again.
I woke up late that Saturday morning. I usually set an alarm so I could get up and get something done, but I’d known I needed sleep. 8:00 a.m. and the birds fought for worms outside my window. At last. I felt rested and ready to tackle the problem at hand. I stretched and took a good five minutes to survey my memories of last week. Of the Sandman. I scratched my head. The second robbery had been in the papers. The theft had been the same, all the silver in the bank, and any brass that wasn’t nailed down.
But… why? Paper cash and gold were worth more than silver and brass. It made no sense. Unless they had some other use... something that wasn't related to money?
I got dressed and brushed my teeth and all that. I was supposed to go over to Iron Wraith’s house so we could talk. We needed to figure out what Sandman was up to and find a way to stop him.
I was headed out the door when I heard my sister call out. “Where you going, brother?”
I paused with my hand on the knob. “I’m headed to… a friend’s house.” I really needed to learn Iron Wraith’s real name. “I already told Mom.”
Katrina appeared from around the corner. Wearing her coat. “Can I come?” She hopped up and down in excitement. “It’s my friend’s house too!”
I didn’t see any reason to refuse. “Sure thing, sister.”
Iron Wraith’s raggedy old house was the same as ever, looming over the rest of the neighborhood as though it wanted to frighten the other houses away.
Iron Wraith’s mom let us in. I found Iron Wraith in the basement after Katrina went upstairs to look for Jane. Iron Wraith was playing a video game. The screen was moving so fast, I couldn’t tell what was going on. It seemed Iron Wraith even played video games faster than the rest of the world.
“Hey,” I called, putting my coat on the back of the couch. “Research?”
“Um, yeah man, I did some research,” he said. He didn’t tear his eyes away from the television.
“What did you learn?” I asked, skeptical.
“Hold on,” he replied. The sound of lasers firing came from the video game. Iron Wraith grunted in satisfaction and pulled off a headset. As he removed it, someone yelled at him over the tiny speaker and I distinctly made out the word “cheater.”
“You want pizza?” Wraith asked as he set down his video game controller. “Never mind,” he said a moment later, vanishing with a whoosh.
He was back about two minutes later with a large pizza box. He opened the cardboard container. The pizza was all folded over to one side.
“Whoops.” He shrugged. He smoothed it out and grabbed a slice.
“You turned the box to metal, but not the pizza?” I asked.
“I guess so. Forgot to pop it.”
“You forgot what?” I asked.
“I have to turn pop to metal to transport it, or it explodes all over the place when I run. I have to do that with other stuff, too, or the speed can ruin it. I call it pop-ing it.”
“Ah,” I said. I’d already known about the soda pop, but I hadn’t realized it was something he had to do consciously. “So what did you find out?” I asked, grabbing a slice of pizza. I’d forgotten to eat breakfast again and I was pretty darn hungry.
He gave me a blank look.
“Sandman?”
“Oh!” Iron Wraith shook his head, mouth full. “Nothing! Sorry.”
“Well… you said you’d been working on stopping Sandman for a while,” I said after swallowing a mouthful of delicious pepperoni goodness. “Is there anything you haven’t told me about him yet? If we just knew who Sandman was it might help us stop him.”
“No. That does give me an idea though!” Iron Wraith grinned.
“Really?”
“There’s someone we can talk to.” Iron Wraith's voice dropped a little, as though he were cluing me in to some secret. “Someone who can tell us more about Sandman.”
“Great!” I moved to grab my coat. “Let’s go.”
“Alright I’ll take you to him. I gotta warn you though he’s a little weird.”
“Weirder than a kid who can turn himself into metal and outrun a jet?” I asked.
As it turned out… yes.
- - -
Walking out the front door, I almost collided with a figure about to ring the doorbell. Iron Wraith bumped into my back when we stopped.
Tony.
“Hey.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. He cast his eyes down to the chipped paint of Iron Wraith’s front porch. “I, um, I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”
“It’s ok,” I replied, trying to meet Tony’s gaze. He kept his eyes turned away. “It was my fault. We should have run. I mean… it was my first time trying to be a superhero and I didn’t want to mess it up. Even if it was just a stupid bank robbery.”
“I do a lot of running,” Iron Wraith said. “Speedster and all. It doesn't always help. That elephant thing didn’t have any problem hurting us. Sandman is far from harmless.”
“Yeah, but still,” I said.
“Let’s just forget it.” Tony glanced at his nails. Still no eye contact.
“Ok. We’re going to chase a lead on Sandman. You want to come?” I asked.
“Chase a lead? Really, you think you’re a detective now?” Tony rolled his eyes.
“It’s an expression,” I said. “Iron Wraith knows someone who might be able to help us.”
“Ok, yeah, I’ll come. I want to know what's going on.”
We set off. Iron Wraith’s guy lived downtown. Katrina stayed with Jane. The city could be a little dangerous and I didn’t want to bring her along. Iron Wraith’s neighborhood was pretty safe— safer than our own apartment building— so it would be better to leave her there.
I felt vulnerable without armor, but I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. Without it, I felt like I could still pass for a normal kid. A normal kid with a secret identity to protect. I was determined to be more careful about that. It surprised me how fast I'd gotten used to the armor. I wondered how hard it would be if I had to give it up when all this was over, and decided I didn't want to think about it.
We arrived at a street where all the houses were jammed against each other. Townhouses, I think they’re called. Iron Wraith led us up to a door that was painted sky blue and knocked over and over again until I grabbed his wrist. “Two or three knocks is usually enough.”
“I never knock less than seven times,” he said. He pulled against my grip as though he wanted to knock again.
“Doesn’t that annoy people?” Tony asked.
“Don’t know. I never asked,” Iron Wraith replied.
Before Tony or I could think of a response to that, the door swung open.
The inside of the house was dark. A boy in black goggles stood at the door. “Marcus?” the boy asked. “Come in quick!”
“Hey Radar. These are my friends.” The boy called Radar ushered all three of us inside.
How does he see in a dark room… with dark lenses in his goggles? I wondered. Had to have something to do with whatever his superpowers were.
“Anthony Smith,” Radar said, nodding at Tony.
He looked at me and frowned.
“I can’t see him,” Radar said. “Why can’t I see his past?”
“How did you know my name?” Tony asked, biting his lip.
“Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat.” Radar responded. Tony was big on taking pictures with his phone. Apparently he used Instagram a lot.
“Um
—” Tony tightened his hands into fists and looked down.
“You can read the internet?” I guessed.
“Very good. What gave it away?” Radar asked.
“I don’t have internet and I’m not allowed to make a Facebook account,” I said with a shrug. “You couldn’t read me.”
“Wow, you just figured that out on your own?” Iron Wraith asked me.
“You’re like me,” Radar said. “You can see the connections between things.”
“I guess,” I said, though I’d never really thought about it that way. I certainly wouldn't have compared myself to a superhero.
“I see the internet in my mind. Anything that happens online, I can access. There’s no secret server I can’t hack, and no one with an active online presence I can’t find.” That fit with the dark room and the goggles… he probably had to limit his sensory input so he didn’t get overwhelmed.
“We need to know about the Sandman,” Iron Wraith said. “What can you tell us about him?”
“Real name Matthew Wallace. Fifteen years old. He has one superpower: the ability to make anyone he chooses fall asleep. All he has to do is sprinkle some of the dust he carries on them and they will fall into a deep— Oh, hey, gosh dang it! No! No!” His sudden explanation was cut short when he started yelling for absolutely no reason and stomped his foot.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
“Yes, something is very wrong! My favorite British soccer team is LOSING. AAAAARGH!”
“There’s more than one British soccer team?” Tony asked.
“British people play soccer?” Iron Wraith asked.
“You were telling us about Matthew Wallace?” I asked, hoping to steer the conversation back toward something more helpful than European sporting events.
“Yes… Sandman. He’s been a small-time thief for several years now. He worked out of Chicago before coming to the east coast. He’s most known for going after jewelry store silver… but he steals brass too… far more brass than silver, actually.”
More brass than silver?
“But why?” I asked. I didn’t expect Radar to know the answer, but I was frustrated.
Radar shrugged. “He’s not been on the internet much since he discovered his powers. Knows about people like me, I suppose.”
“Can you tell us where he is now?” I asked.
Radar tilted his head to the side, as though listening to a far-away voice. “No. Like I said, he’s not online much. Best I can give you is an address from around the time he went dark.”
“That would be a start,” I said.
Radar wrote the location on a napkin, since he didn’t keep paper around the house. This made me wonder about his parents; did they mind the dark? Didn’t they need paper to take down notes? Tony started to get antsy though, so I decided maybe we should just go. Ever since the night we’d battled Elephant Boy, darkness seemed to put Tony on edge.
I could tell he was breathing easier as we stepped outside, back into crisp fall air and sunlight.
Iron Wraith had taken the napkin from Radar. He held it up to read it as we stood on the front steps. “Oh my gosh, that is so far to walk!” he moaned.
I glanced at the paper. There were directions written down, ending with an address. 101 Scout Street, apartment 7B. I didn’t recognize most of the streets listed in the instructions. “Really?” I asked.
“At least fifteen minutes! Having sidekicks is harder than I thought it would be.”
“Fifteen minutes?” Tony asked with a raised eyebrow.
“We walked longer than that to get here,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, and it was killing me. We need to get you guys some super speed. Then we could run everywhere really fast!”
“Dude, chill.” Tony walked slightly ahead of us, fists balled, not looking back.
“I’m getting Stuffmaker on it next time I see him,” Iron Wraith said.
“That’d be cool.” I suppressed a sigh. Any superpower— anything at all— would have been amazing, but I wasn’t going to say that.
Chapter 10
The elevator door closed with a clatter. Tony pressed the button for the seventh floor. We moved upward with a slow rumble.
The address Radar scribbled down for Matthew Wallace had led us to an apartment building not far from my family’s place, though further toward the edge of town than I’d ever gone. Despite Iron Wraith’s complaints, it hadn’t taken long for us to get there. Iron Wraith hadn’t brought up how slow we were again. He was too relaxed to let something bother him for long.
We stepped off the elevator onto a worn carpet with a flowery pattern. The hallway smelled old and musty. There was a giant pot of dirt near the elevator that might once have held an overgrown houseplant. I examined everything carefully, storing away tidbits of information that might help me figure out Sandman and how his mind worked. I… wasn’t getting much from the hallway.
When Iron Wraith raised his hand toward door 704, I decided I should beat him to the punch and gave three sharp raps on the door.
AND
WHO
SHOULD
ANSWER
BUT
SANDMAN?!
I’ll admit it. We probably should have been prepared for the possibility that he still lived at his last known address. It shouldn’t have caught us by surprise, but it did. That moment, when the door creaked open and I saw him standing there in a T-shirt and pajama pants, it remains one of my strongest lessons on the importance of being ready for anything, and thinking things through before making decisions.
Sandman was his usual smug self. “Hey, boys.” He smiled. “Sorry, I’m busy right now. Can’t have any visitors.”
He started to close the door. In the apartment, I saw a living room with one chair, a boxy old television, and a hospital bed. Someone was lying on the bed. I couldn’t tell how old they were or even if they were a boy or a girl.
Iron Wraith disappeared. From the direction of the breeze, I could tell he’d gone inside the apartment, slipping under Sandman’s arm. Startled, Sandman threw silvery sleeping dust everywhere. I sneezed, but was otherwise unaffected. The sleeping powder got Tony though, and he would have landed hard if I hadn’t caught him.
Iron Wraith was back a moment later, but he fell asleep the second he burst back out of the apartment. He was still metal when he fell, and I was already struggling with Tony, so I had to let him drop. The floor shook as he hit the carpet and turned back to his normal self.
Not good.
Sandman let out an angry growl. “What was he up to?” He kicked at one of Iron Wraith’s sneakers as I awkwardly lowered Tony to the ground.
I shrugged. I had no idea. “Who’s in there?”
“Never mind that,” he replied. “You’ve got five minutes to get out of here before I call Elephant Butt to come up here and kick your… behind.”
“Elephant Boy lives in the building?” I asked. That was really not good.
“Of course he does. Now scram, kid!” He slammed the door. I heard a chain slide into place, followed by the heavy click of a bolt as Sandman locked the door.
“Ok… crud,” I said, standing in a hallway with two friends out cold and less than five minutes to get out of the building. “This is not good.”
- - -
The elevator door rattled open onto a quiet, empty lobby. Iron Wraith and Tony were slumped against the wall of the elevator, still sleeping. Unable to wake them, I’d been forced to drag the pair down the hall and into the elevator one at a time.
As the doors opened and I peeked outside, Tony suddenly woke with a start, letting out a little scream and kicking his feet. I jumped myself, and bit my lip to keep from screaming along with him.
“You startled me,” I said.
“What is going on?” Tony started to sit up.
“No time to explain.” I grabbed one of Iron Wraith’s arms. “Help me with Marcus. We have to get out of here.”
We put Iron Wraith’s arms
over our shoulders, and together we hauled the unconscious boy out of the building. I relaxed a little once we were breathing fresh air. Well, as fresh as air gets close to downtown. I was pretty sure Sandman had been bluffing about Elephant Boy, but it wasn’t a chance I’d wanted to take.
The sun was just going down as we stepped outside, but the streetlights hadn’t come on yet, making it a little hard to see. Maybe that was why we stumbled right into someone as we walked outside.
