by Mike Jung
“Detective, Superintendent,” one of them said. He nodded to Bobby and Mom as the other men in black herded us all toward a corner of the building. “This way.”
We hustled down one of the staircases, through a thick steel door at the bottom of the stairs, and into an elevator that probably could have held a fire truck. I could barely hold still as we went down. Were we taking too long? Was Stupendous holding on?
We raced down a hallway and into an office the size of an airport. There was a bunch of tables and couches and stuff on the end of the room closest to the door, then nothing but carpet for about a mile and a half. The far wall was just a giant window with another desk in front of it. An old lady with white hair sat behind the desk, checking her cell phone—in fact, it was the same old lady who’d hung out with me and Dad when the cops first took me in. Janet somebody. She was practically dead, she was so old.
“Violet!” she said. I was surprised by how loud her voice was. She came around the desk, grabbed both of Mom’s hands, and held them tight.
“Hello, Janet.” Mom had a big smile on her face. “Thanks for going to so much trouble.”
“Oh fiddle-faddle,” the old lady said. “It was a special occasion.”
“Captain Stupendous needs our help,” Mom said.
“Does he now?”
“We need to bring him some of your carbon nanotube monofilaments,” I said.
Janet (probably Corwin, I suddenly realized) raised her eyebrows at me.
“Err, excuse me,” I said. “Can we? Please?”
“Such a well-mannered young man,” she said. “Of course, young man, I’ll do everything in my power to help Captain Stupendous.”
Wow, just like that. I really wasn’t used to adults saying yes that easily.
“Really?” I said.
“Really,” she said. “You don’t know who I am, do you?”
“Uh … you’re the owner of the company.”
“Oh, I’m more than that.” She smiled. “I’m also a founding member of the Friends of Stupendous.”
The Friends of Stupendous? Those shriveled-up old ladies with their walkers and tiny dogs? I must have drooled or something, because Janet Corwin threw her head back and laughed.
“Captain Stupendous has saved this company from villains more times than I can count, young man. I owe him everything.”
George, Max, and I grinned at each other, and for a change the guys weren’t doing their annoying fake sibling rivalry thing. Max raised a fist, probably to punch me on the shoulder, but our phones all started ringing again. Janet Corwin already had her phone in her hand.
“Professor Mayhem is here,” she said. I looked at my phone.
There was a huge BOOM from somewhere outside, and the floor shook.
“Safety measures, Mendoza,” Janet said. “Call down to R&D and have a spool of filament brought up to the landing pad entrance.”
Security Guy Mendoza nodded and ran out of the office, while barking into a walkie-talkie.
“Bobby, let’s go,” I said, yanking on Bobby’s sleeve.
“Vincent, you’re staying here,” Mom said.
“Forget it, I’m going!” I said.
“So are we!” George said. Max nodded his head.
“VINCENT—”
“Your mother’s right, Vincent,” Bobby said.
“No, she’s not!” I said, spinning around to face Bobby.
“Vincent, you’ve done extraordinary things,” Bobby said. “You helped Captain Stupendous rescue your mom from Professor Mayhem! I’ll take it from here. Just tell me what Stupendous expects me to do.”
“He’s expecting ME,” I said. “It won’t work if I’m not there!”
I was bluffing, of course—Stupendous wasn’t expecting a thing—but there was no way Bobby would go along with my real plan. It was too insane.
“Bobby, you know about helicopters and villains in this town,” George said. “Remember Blitzkrieg?”
“If Stupendous sees a helicopter without Vincent inside, he won’t know it’s there to deliver the monofilament,” Max said, and seriously, does anybody have more amazing friends than I do?
“Vincent, I am NOT letting this happen,” Mom said.
“There’s no choice.” I folded my arms, planted my feet, and stared at Bobby. Bobby stared back, frowning. I had to fold my arms, because if I didn’t, Bobby would see my hands shaking. Standing up to a bunch of adults who practically run the world is freaky, you know?
Bobby looked at Janet Corwin.
“Ms. Corwin, Vincent’s father is in the building, can you get him up here?”
Janet Corwin smiled and shook her head.
“Raymond’s sector of the building is in full security lockdown,” she said.
“Why aren’t you in full security lockdown too?” I said.
“What, and miss getting a bird’s-eye view of the action? When this is all over I’ll tell you about the summer I lived in Boomtown, when Blue Blazes defeated the Luddite. I was thirteen.”
Suddenly I wanted to be friends with Janet Corwin.
Bobby shook his head.
“You win, Vincent, let’s go,” he said.
“WHAT?” Mom had her fists clenched, which was an unusual look for her.
“There’s no time to argue, Violet. But you two stay here!” He said that last part to Max and George.
“NO WAY!” Max said. “We’re sticking together!”
“Yeah, we’re a TEAM,” George said.
“I know,” Bobby said. “But I can’t justify taking all three of you up there. Let’s go, Vincent.”
I almost tried one last time to change his mind about Max and George, but, dude, we were out of time.
“Sorry, guys,” I said as Bobby and I took off running.
“Both our necks are on the line, Vincent,” Bobby said as we reached the elevators. A bunch of new security guys went running past as we got in the elevator. “You’re sure Stupendous is expecting this?”
Well, no.
“Yeah,” I said. “We planned it all out during our escape. We have to … make it look like the helicopter’s spinning out of control, and when Stupendous sees me inside it we’ll make the exchange.”
“We’ll have problems if he doesn’t see you,” Bobby said.
“He has superpowered vision, he can see tiny, little things from a mile away. Literally.”
I still needed to tell Stupendous what to do with Dad’s Amazing Wonder String, though, just to make sure. History is full of superheroes and bad guys who get beat because they had the key to victory in their hands without knowing it.
We got out of the elevator and ran back to the steel door that led up to the roof. A couple of security guys were there, along with a girl who looked like a teenager, with her big, chunky glasses and her brown hair in a ponytail. She wore a white lab coat, though, so she must have been a scientist. She held out a cylinder of metal the size of a soda bottle, and Bobby grabbed it without even breaking stride.
Up on the roof, Tom the Pilot had the engine running, and my hair was blown every which way as Bobby and I ran to the helicopter and climbed in. Bobby used one hand to pull the door down into place with a THUNK. There was a window in the door, big enough for both rows of passengers to see out—I tapped on it with my knuckles.
“Does this open?” I asked Tom the Pilot.
“Affirmative,” he said as we roared up off the helicopter pad. He fiddled with his armrest, and a rectangular panel slid open on my armrest, revealing a toggle switch. “Push that switch forward, the window slides open horizontally.”
I eyeballed the window. It looked just big enough for my real plan.
We took off, and I looked out over Corwin Plaza as the roof dropped out from under us.
“Up! Go up!” I said. “We have to get over them!”
“Do it, Tom,” Bobby said.
Silent Tom shook his head like he thought it was a bad idea, but we were thrown back in our seats as the chopper lurc
hed and buzzed up at an angle. It would be bad if Stupendous did a Meteor Strike just as the helicopter flew over him, but I remembered what he said on that downtown rooftop after that first battle at the school district offices.
I hate those helicopters! Let them out of your sight for one second and they fly right in front of you!
He’d see the chopper. I was betting everything on it.
The sun was going down, and the trees and shops around the edge of Corwin Plaza had long shadows stretching out behind them. The robot was halfway in the shade of Corwin Towers, but its other half reflected the sunlight in all directions. The fountain in the middle of the plaza was smashed under the robot’s feet, and giant cracks radiated out from that spot.
Stupendous and the robot took turns lunging at each other, taking the occasional swing, looking for an opening. I pressed my face closer to the helicopter window until the battle was directly below us.
“We’re right over them,” Bobby said.
“Give me the filament,” I said. “And get ready.”
Bobby handed the filament canister over his shoulder.
“Hold up, Vincent,” he said, handing over a clear plastic tube full of some kind of goo. “Strike this safety flare on the outside of the chopper to activate it, then drop it with the filament. Those things are extremely bright—Captain Stupendous can’t miss seeing it.”
DING, DING, DING! Thank you, Bobby! The flare was totally gonna help, but not in the way Bobby thought.
I fumbled with the switch in my armrest, and the window zipped open, letting in a rush of air. Then I unbuckled my seat belt, which made a red light start flashing in the cockpit.
“We have an unsecured passenger,” Silent Tom said.
“Wait, what are you doing, Vincent?” Bobby shouted.
“I have to lean out the window to make sure Stupendous sees me!” I lied.
“WHAT?”
“I have to!”
“Good grief … hold on, let’s at least tie a rope around your waist so you don’t fall out!”
Uh, no.
“Okay!” I lied again.
“Buckle up, Vincent! Be safe!”
I sighed, “Sure, Bobby.”
I took a firm grip on the flare and filament canister. Then I closed my eyes, whacked the flare on my armrest, and tossed the flare between Bobby and Tom.
“VINCENT, NO!”
“AAARRRGH!”
“I SAID, ‘OUTSIDE’!”
I kept my eyes closed, grabbed the edge of the window, got my head and arms outside, where it was all WHUP-WHUP-WHUP-WHUP, and by thrashing my arms and kicking my feet I got the whole top half of my body outside.
Then I fell out of the helicopter.
I regretted it right away, of course. No helicopter, no superhero, just Vincent Wu dropping like a rock—it was total insanity! I couldn’t tell if the whooshing in my ears was the helicopter, the wind, or just the sound of my panic. Once again, I was about to die.
Then Stupendous was there!
BAM! I yelped in pain as he caught me—we were going in opposite directions, after all. I almost cried with relief as Stupendous jetted away from the helicopter, which was going in slow circles above us.
“VINCENT! ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL YOURSELF?” Stupendous yelled in my ear, practically blowing out my eardrums.
“Oooooow, stop yelling in my ear!”
“Can’t you see I’m BUSY? And you KNOW I hate helicopters!”
“Monofilament!” I said. “Carbon nanotube!”
“WHAT ARE YOU BABBLING ABOUT?”
Stupendous zigged and zagged across the sky, with Mayhem’s robot hot on our tails.
“I have my dad’s unbreakable fishing line!” I said. “If you get the robot to spin its arms around, you can use the fishing line to tangle it up like a gyroscope!”
I had the canister in a two-handed death grip, and I stuck it in his face.
“Get that thing out of my face!” Stupendous said. He accelerated into a big loop-de-loop over the robot’s head and back toward the ground. The robot spun around, and we all stopped and hovered in midair.
Stupendous and I had our backs to the sun. We were right between the towers, and their shadows stretched forward on either side of us. The sunlight was all hazy and yellowish, and it lit up Mayhem’s robot as it landed in the plaza again with a CRUNCH. I heard a faint WHUP-WHUP-WHUP sound from somewhere over us, and for a second I wondered if Bobby was okay.
“Tell me again about your dad’s … what is it?” Stupendous said. “Magic string?”
I twisted open the canister and pulled out a shiny metal spool with a skinny black thread wrapped around its middle.
“Carbon nanotube monofilament,” I said. “It’s unbreakable, just like Mayhem’s robot. Get it to do that helicopter thing with its upper body and wind this string around its neck—”
Stupendous looked at the canister, then busted out a huge, toothy, movie-star grin: the classic Captain Stupendous grin.
“Yeah,” he said. “YEAH! Aw, he is toast.”
Stupendous moved so fast that I didn’t even see him grab the spool out of my hand. I went, “OOF,” as he spun around, flew between the towers at light speed, and zoomed up over the top of them. He slowed down a little as we passed over the helicopter pad. My feet pinged and ricocheted off the pad, then Stupendous let me go. I tumbled a couple of times and slid to a halt.
Stupendous floated right over the center of the plaza, making big looping motions with his arms. I was too far away to see the monofilament, but I imagined it dangling from his hands in a big U shape, ready for a little robot destruction.
The robot raised its arms into a fighting pose, and Mayhem’s voice yelled out.
“WHAT DO YOU HAVE THERE, STUPENDOUS?” Mayhem’s voice said. “SOME KIND OF NEW TOY?”
“YOU’RE ABOUT TO FIND OUT,” Stupendous shouted. He rocketed around behind the robot’s head and made a throwing motion. The sunlight reflected off a tiny metal object flying through the air—it was the monofilament spool.
ZOOM! Stupendous went into super-acceleration mode. The robot tried a spinning kick, but Stupendous dodged and flew in a circle around the robot’s head. He stopped right in front of the robot’s face and shouted at the top of his lungs.
“HEY, LOOOOOOOSER!”
“GRAAAAAAAHHHHHHRRRR!” Mayhem’s voice said. The robot’s arms went straight out from its body, and everything between its neck and waist blurred into motion. Stupendous got hit, but this time he wasn’t sent flying like a baseball, because the robot’s torso stopped spinning almost instantly.
There was a short, harsh SKRINCH sound as the robot’s arms got tangled up in the monofilament. The robot’s shoulders were pulled loose, its head jerked up at a weird angle, and its left arm caved in at the elbow. The robot actually smacked itself in the face with its own right hand, which knocked the head even farther back on its neck.
Game over, man.
“YEEEEAAAAAHHHH!” I hollered, and a faint cheer rose from the ground below. I ran to the edge and looked cautiously over. The edges of the plaza were lined with people.
The robot hung there, arms and legs twitching, as Stupendous wrapped his arms around its bashed-in chin and planted one foot against its pushed-out shoulder. The muscles in his shoulders and arms bunched up as he slowly but surely twisted the robot’s head around, then popped it all the way off. His momentum spun him partway around, but he hung on to the head with one hand and caught the headless body before it could hit the ground.
This time the cheering didn’t stop, in fact it was more delirious screaming. Even from the top of the tallest building in Copperplate City I could hear it with no problem, and for a second I felt really alone. Then there was the sound of feet running across the roof behind me. I turned around just in time for Max and George to barrel into me, slapping me on the head and cackling like lunatics.
“YOU’RE ALIVE AGAIN!” Max yelled. He pumped both fists straight up in the air, over and over.
George threw his head all the way back and laughed like a hyena.
I saw Security Guy Mendoza and some of his men step onto the roof behind Max and George, and I heard a gradually louder WHUP-WHUP-WHUP sound as Bobby’s helicopter came down from the sky.
“Dude, you jumped out of a helicopter,” Max said. “That was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“It was the most AMAZING thing I’ve ever seen!” George said. “Did you get a spine transplant?”
“For a while I thought you were turning into the bravest kid ever, but now I know you just went nuts,” Max said.
“You guys are just jealous,” I said.
“Of you? No way,” Max said.
Aw, geez. Ow.
“Of course not,” I said, feeling like I’d just had my three-ring binder knocked out of my hands in the school hallway. “Who’d be jealous of—”
“Dude, no,” Max said, and all of a sudden his voice was dead serious. “What I mean is—I just—look at it this way: Name one other kid in history who’s ever made it through three supervillain attacks, then defeated the villain. Bet you can’t do it.”
I tried, and Max was right. “Can’t do it.”
“See? What I mean is when you’re in the Captain Stupendous Fan Club, you can’t be jealous of El Presidente. And that’s you, Vincent.”
I wasn’t gonna be all gross and say so, but I felt a happy, little zing! when Max said that. He held up a fist, so I made my hand into a fist, looked at it, and bumped Max’s fist with it. Max grinned as George and I smacked our fists together, then we all did a ridiculous group guy-hug. I almost lost my balance, but the guys kept me from falling over.
Everybody else arrived on the roof at the same time—Bobby and Silent Tom from the helicopter, Mom, Dad, and Janet Corwin from the stairwell. Mom and Dad looked ready to tear my head off my shoulders, or Bobby’s head, or both.
Most importantly, Captain Stupendous arrived.
