Powerless

by Tera Lynn Childs

  She crosses to the far corner, where one of Nitro’s fireballs did a number on the file cabinets. There are papers strewn everywhere.

  Mr. Malone goes after her and I follow.

  “Jeanine, stop,” he says, moving to her side as she starts grabbing folders off the floor. “You don’t have to leave the lab.”

  She whirls around to face him. “Villains broke in here tonight,” she says, her voice bordering on a shriek. “Nitro broke in here. He blew up my lab and tied up my daughter. Someone mind-wiped her. It’s not safe here anymore.”

  “It is,” he insists. When she glares at him, he amends, “It will be. I’ve already called the Cleaners. By morning it’ll be like villains were never here.”

  Mom shoves the stack of folders into my hands. “The mess isn’t the problem. The security breach is unacceptable.”

  “That will be dealt with.” He takes the files from me and places them on the nearest counter. “I’ve called an emergency meeting of the Superhero Collective. We will institute new protections to make the facility more secure than ever.”

  When Mom reaches for the files Mr. Malone just put down, he gently but firmly puts his hand on hers. “I promise, Jeanine. You and Kenna will be safer here than anywhere else on the planet.”

  Mom looks like she’s going to argue. Then she crumbles. Head in her hands, she starts sobbing.

  I rush to her side and wrap my arms around her. I can’t stand to see her cry. She might not be perfect, but we’re a team. “It’s okay, Mom,” I promise. “Everything will be okay.”

  “I can’t lose you too,” she says. “I can’t.”

  “I’m fine.” I rub my hands up and down her back like she used to do for me when I was little.

  I feel Mr. Malone’s reassuring hand on my shoulder.

  “You two go on home,” he says in that authoritative tone that sounds like he was born to be in charge. “I’ll coordinate the cleanup efforts and get those extra protections in place. The whole incident will be a bad memory by morning.”

  “No, no, I’m fine,” Mom says, wiping away her tears. She straightens and I can tell that in-charge Mom is back. “Kenna, can you come with me to my office? I want to check on the damage in there.”

  That’s Mom code for It’s time for your immunity shot.

  As I follow her out of the lab, I really hope Mr. Malone is right. Between everything that happened with Draven, Dante, and Nitro, plus being tied to a table and then lying by omission to both my mom and the president of the League, this is pretty much a night I would love to forget.

  Too bad there’s never a memory wipe around when you need one.

  Maybe I can pretend that Draven’s power worked on me. After my shot, I’ll go home, get a good night’s—or day’s—sleep, and then come back to the lab to finish my work as if nothing happened.

  Villains may have stolen one night of research time from me. I won’t let them take any more.

  • • •

  To the uninitiated, Mom’s office would appear to have been hit by one of Nitro’s fireballs. There are stacks of papers and boxes everywhere. It’s amazing the door even opens with all the stuff packed inside.

  But there’s been no villain destruction in here. This is how it always looks—everyday, disaster chic. She swears she knows where everything is. I don’t believe her.

  I’ve volunteered to sort and organize everything a million times, but she loves the chaos. I, however, can barely think in here. A grizzly bear could be hiding in this clutter forest and you’d never know.

  “I swear, sometimes that man just—” Mom drops into her desk chair and shakes her head.

  She and Mr. Malone have had their conflicts over the years. I often wonder why she keeps working for him. Any genetics lab in the country would be thrilled to have her, even if she can’t include all of her work at ESH on her resume. For whatever reason, though, she stays on. Her research drives her, and I don’t think she could walk away from it before she’s finished.

  I suppose I understand. I feel the same way about my research. It’s my passion and it’s personal.

  I remove the half-empty box of petri dishes from the stool next to her desk and sit down.

  “Do you believe him?” I ask. “Do you think the new security measures will keep the lab safe?”

  Mom scoffs. “He doesn’t even know how they got in. How can he know what will keep them out?”

  I shrug as I roll up my sleeve.

  Getting immunity shots is routine. Mom doesn’t even use a syringe anymore. She has this futuristic injection gun that does all the hard work. She just pops in a vial, holds it up to my arm, and pulls the trigger.

  But when she opens her bottom desk drawer and pulls out a vial from the box she keeps hidden in the back, she curses.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “It’s clouded.” She flings herself back in her chair. “And I haven’t started a new batch. I was going to do that tomorrow.”

  I don’t know much about the immunity serum besides what it does, but I do know that when it goes cloudy, the chemical bonds have broken and it’s on its way to becoming toxic.

  “It’s no big deal,” I tell her, even though I know she thinks it is. “A couple of days won’t make much of a difference.”

  She turns her scientist glare on me. I can already hear the speech in my head. The dose is carefully calculated to match your metabolism. Immunity only lasts a week at full strength. After that, it gradually wears off.

  Sometimes I wonder if she even notices me—Kenna—anymore, or if all she really sees is the powerless girl she’s desperate to protect.

  I throw up my hands. “Hey, I’m not responsible for it going bad.”

  “I know.” She tugs me into her lap for a hug. “I’m just shaken up after the break-in. When I first heard…”

  I give her a tight squeeze before pushing back to my feet. On the one hand it’s annoying how overprotective she can be. On the other…I totally understand. I already lost my dad, and now I’d do anything to keep her safe.

  “What time is it?” I ask.

  Mom checks the clock on her computer. “Almost two in the morning.”

  “No wonder I’m so beat,” I say, stifling a yawn.

  I’m usually good for another couple hours of my own work, but I guess the villain situation took a toll on me. Besides, it’s not like I can get anything done in the lab now.

  “You go on home and get some rest.” She squeezes my shoulder.

  “Sure you don’t want to come with me?”

  She shakes her head. “I need to make sure those idiots don’t mess with any of my research while they’re cleaning up.”

  “And you need to start the new batch of immunity serum.”

  “And that,” she says with a smile.

  “You’re sure you don’t want me to help?”

  I’m always offering, but she always refuses. I’m not even allowed to observe the process.

  “I just need a little catnap. I’ll be good as new.”

  I give her a quick kiss on the cheek before heading back to the lab. I want to grab my things and then go straight home to bed. As I walk down the hall, I have a flashback to when Draven appeared around the corner. All I had seen was a gorgeous guy, tall and dark and way too hot to be hanging out at a lab.

  I wasn’t wrong. He is too hot to work in a lab. He’s also too dark, too dangerous, and too twisted.

  A villain.

  Draven is a villain, and I can’t afford to forget that. He didn’t kill me this time, but that’s no guarantee he won’t if we ever run into each other again. Forgetting that, even for a second, is like signing my own death warrant.

  With that thought in mind, I round the corner into a world of chaos. At least a dozen heroes—most of whom I don’t even recognize—are working to rest
ore the lab.

  The Cleaners. Definitely the Cleaners.

  A woman with frizzy blond hair—who looks more like an escapee from a hippie commune than a hero—waves her hand over the shards of glass littering the hallway, sending them swirling through the air toward the empty window frame. Another swish of her hand and the shards coalesce like the most complicated jigsaw puzzle ever, filling the space with a cracked version of the pre-Nitro window. A tall, skinny guy with white-blond hair and a nose like a rat flicks his fingers at the glass, and in one melty swirl, the cracks disappear. The window looks good as new.

  Bet Nitro would be pissed to know how easily we fixed his handiwork.

  Inside the lab proper, heroes clear scorch marks off the walls and ceilings, air-sweep spilled chemicals into a containment bin, and repair the half-melted tabletops closest to where Nitro had been standing. A telekinetic hero swoops up a stack of papers and folders from the floor, floating them into growing piles on one of the unmelted tables.

  Must be nice. Seeing all these different powers at work could make a girl crazy if she was the type to dwell on what she doesn’t have. Which I so totally am not.

  Except…I cast another look over my shoulder. That melty-glass power is pretty cool. I’ve never seen that one before. Vending machines wouldn’t stand a chance against that.

  A team of lab assistants goes from cabinet to cabinet, making a list of all the supplies that need to be replaced. When they head back toward my station, I’m jolted out of stunned observation.

  “No,” I shout, blocking the path. “This is mine. I’ll handle the inventory.”

  They look at each other and shrug before moving on to the next cabinet. Mom may be okay with other people touching her research, but mine is off limits.

  I make a quick sign that reads KENNA’S STUFF DON’T TOUCH in big red letters, and then draw a giant skull and crossbones on it before taping it to the door. With the kind of chemicals around here, the Cleaners should take the warning seriously.

  “Excuse me,” a woman says.

  She points at the floor beneath my stool where an ooze of green liquid is seeping out in an ever-growing circle. It looks like Mom’s Dissolve All—an acid formula that will liquefy any nonorganic material, so it’s safe to touch but incredibly difficult to contain. My stool starts sinking as the acid melts the legs.

  I move away and let the woman do her job. I watch as she uses her hands to sweep the goo into a special organic container. Gross.

  “Ooof.” Someone knocks into me, sending me stumbling.

  “Sorry,” the guy says without taking his gaze off the ceiling.

  I need to grab my stuff and get out of here. I’m in the way, and if I’m not careful, I’ll get hurt. Or worse, not hurt—as in my immunity will show, and then where will I be? Grounded for life, that’s where.

  Avoiding situations that might reveal my immunity is an art.

  On my way out, I collide with another person. God, could I be more useless? I start to apologize, then realize I’ve crashed into Riley. Damn.

  He clutches his smartphone to his chest. “Kenna. Hi, hello.”

  “Hey, Riley,” I answer.

  “Terrible business here tonight,” he says, gesturing at the lab around us. “And you? Having to face down villains, um, face-to-face. That must have been awful.”

  And without a single power to help you. He doesn’t have to say the words out loud for me to hear them. They’re written all over his face. As if he could outfly one of Nitro’s fireballs.

  I’ve always felt like a powerless little goldfish in the big superpowers pond when I’m around him. He watches me. Studies me. I can tell he doesn’t understand how Rebel and I are friends.

  Then again, Rebel is pretty much beyond everyone’s understanding most of the time.

  “Not an experience I want to repeat, no.” I cover my mouth to hide a yawn.

  Riley doesn’t take the hint.

  “Well, it won’t happen again. The new security measures will be unparalleled,” he explains. “Retinal scans on the elevators. Freeze rays aimed at every entrance ready to stop any intruders in their tracks. An electromagnetic shield around the entire campus, configured to allow only authorized personnel signatures. It should all be up and operational within a week.”

  I nod absently, wondering how long I have to stand here listening to him. Riley has a tendency to ramble. If he goes on much longer, I might pass out right here.

  “The IT crew will also be installing security cameras in every hallway this afternoon,” he continues magnanimously. “Dad can ask them to add a camera in the lab too, if you’d like.”

  “No,” I blurt out. “That won’t be necessary.”

  Mom and Mr. Malone have had this argument before. Mr. Malone thinks we need cameras—for security and so we have a record of the research in case of an accident or another problem. Mom doesn’t want to feel like she’s being watched.

  “It’s no problem,” Riley insists. “If it will make you feel safer—”

  Something connects with my head. Hard. “Ouch.”

  I rub at the sore spot and move out of the way of the guy hovering five and a half feet off the ground as he works on a sprinkler head in the ceiling above me.

  Only I could get kicked in the head by a flying superhero. I don’t actually have the power of invisibility, but some days it’s hard to remember that. Especially around here. To the superheroes of the League, an ordinary like me might as well be nonexistent. The powerless are pretty much beneath their notice, unless they have a useful skill like Mom’s super brain.

  When my research is complete, I’ll be invaluable to the heroes. They’ll have to notice me.

  The collision draws Mr. Malone’s attention. “Kenna, sweetheart, I thought you were heading home.”

  “I am, Mr. Malone.” I gesture at the flurry of activity around us. “Just wanted to see if there was anything I could do to help.”

  “Our team has the cleanup under control,” he says with his standard patronizing smile. He exchanges a look with Riley, who resumes typing on his smartphone. “You go on home. Everything will be good as new by morning.”

  Before I can respond, he wraps an arm around Riley’s shoulder and guides him away. And just like that, I’m dismissed. I get it. I’m not a super, so there’s nothing I can do to help. I’m in the way.

  That’s the problem with being an ordinary in the world of heroes—it’s impossible not to feel less all of the time.

  It won’t always be like this, I promise myself. Mom might be working on a way to neutralize villain powers and amplify hero ones, but I’m working on a way to create them.

  If my research is successful, if I can get the chemical sequencing right, then I won’t be ordinary forever. I’ll be powerful, and more important, I’ll matter.

  To everyone.

  Chapter 4

  The elevator doors glide open and I step inside, away from the chaos of the heroes and the Cleaners and the aftermath of the security breach on sub-level one. Walking away from the lab feels strange. Everything is different now, and not because of the break-in or the explosion. It’s because of him. Draven.

  For a second the image of his face pops into my head—all high cheekbones and sculpted jaw—but I refuse to acknowledge it. Refuse to acknowledge him. If I don’t think about what he said, what he did, what he didn’t do, then I don’t have to think about how confusing it all is.

  Villains are bad. I know this. I have always known this. I’ve seen them blow shit up on the news a million times. Seen the aftermath of the earthquakes and fires and devastation they’ve caused around the world. One of them killed my dad in cold blood while another—

  I stop myself. I’ve worked too hard to put that behind me. The fact that I’m even thinking these thoughts now is just more proof that Draven and his friends are bad news. Just be
cause they didn’t kill me doesn’t mean they aren’t bad—and bad for me.

  After all, it’s not like I ran into them while getting a milkshake at Sonic or hanging at the mall with Rebel. They were breaking into a top-secret superhero lab to steal…something. I don’t know what, but they were really pissed that they couldn’t find it.

  Not pissed enough to take it out on me, but they were distracted. And in a hurry. Thinking, even for a minute, that they might not be evil simply because they let me live is stupid. Worse, it’s suicidal.

  Draven might have stuck up for me once, but I doubt he’d do it again. Besides, my wrists still hurt. Which means if I’m around the next time he catches on fire, there’s no way I’m putting it out.

  With that promise to myself, I turn the corner into the ESH lobby. The face we present to the public is all very normal looking. Shiny chrome, gleaming leather, and sparkling glass. Just what you would expect from a company that designs innovative technology.

  There’s no indication that the ESH has anything to do with superheroes, which is how they’ve managed to keep their power and influence out of the limelight for more than sixty years.

  I’m almost to the exit when men start streaming through the front door. It’s the middle of the night and even Mr. Malone, who doesn’t normally have a hair out of place, was dressed down. Not these men. Each is dressed in a perfectly pressed suit in some shade of gray—heather, slate, asphalt, ash… And they’re all wearing sunglasses. Aviator Ray-Bans, it looks like. They spread out in pairs, fanning across the lobby like an army. Or a plague of locusts.

  “Let me see your ID,” one says as he and his partner approach me.

  Who are these guys? I mean, they look like top secret government agents, but that doesn’t make sense. SHPD has already taken over this investigation. Besides, it’s not like we have a superhero version of the CIA or FBI. We’ve never needed one. Superheroes take care of their own trouble.

  “I’m just leaving.” I try to step around the one who addressed me.

  “Your ID,” the second one insists, blocking my way. If possible, he sounds even more obnoxious—and determined—than his partner.