Rocky Road (Cape High Series Book 18)

by R. J. Ross

  “Then tell him he must be coming out and helping,” Tatiana demands. “I have lost my beads! He will retrieve them from ocean, now.”

  Superior twitches, and then sighs. “I’m on my way.” He looks around, his eyes lingering on several people, including me, and then he heads out.

  “He really doesn’t want to do that, does he?” Sunny says.

  “Getting beads from the ocean floor? Probably not,” Nico says. “Okay, now that the intrusion is over, those of you on the obstacle course, go on. Those of you that will be training special skills, you’re free to go, as well. Sandra, we’re going to start you out small—Emily, get over here.”

  “What?” Emily yelps. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Nope, you’ve already said that you’ll both be Liberty girls—you need to learn how to work together.”

  “Doing what?” I ask, “Posing?”

  “Emily is a duplicator and a teleporter,” Nico says. “You shouldn’t underestimate her. The two of you working together should be able to take on decent sized disasters with no problem. Ace, we’ll have you help out. Let’s do a burning building.”

  “What?” I ask.

  “We’re going into a burning building?” Emily asks, looking a lot more excited than I do. “Awesome!”

  “Just running in blindly isn’t smart,” Nico says. “I expect you to come up with a team plan, and execute it. But since Superior interrupted, you’ll have to do it in our final hour.”

  “How is Ace supposed to help us with a burning building?” I ask. “Shouldn’t we have Vinny do it?”

  “It’s a waste of material to use Vinny,” Nico says. “We’ve got a perfectly good illusionist right here, and it’ll count for his training, too.”

  “I’ll do it,” Ace says. I look at him, seeing a little smile on his face. “It sounds like fun—and if she’s pairing up with Emily, I’ll probably be going up against her sooner or later, too, right?”

  I look at him. “No offense,” I have to say, “but I don’t think that would be… smart.”

  “He never fights with fists unless he has no choice,” Trent explains. “He’s one of those thinking-type villains. It’s good that Max isn’t here, though, or we’d be looking at a war over your debut.”

  “Debut?” I repeat.

  “I already claim it,” Jack says. “Don’t even think of trying, Ace.”

  “I never said I was going hero,” I have to point out. The entire group goes silent, and I wonder if I said something wrong, until Jack lets out a loud “OH YEAH!”

  “We were looking for a female villain!” Ace says, grinning from ear to ear.

  “I never said I was going villain, either,” I say, but they’re too excited to hear me, I guess.

  “You want to go back and forth, then?” Nico asks, making me look up. “Sounds fun. We can pull that off, no problem. But I still think a burning building training will be useful. We’ll turn it into a robbery drill, later on.”

  “I—” I say, only to give up. “Sure, whatever.”

  “That means she’s fair game for anyone, right?” Trent asks, looking intrigued. “I could do your debut!”

  “I have never felt so popular in my life,” I say flatly. Emily wraps her arms around my arm and tugs, almost budging me, to my surprise.

  “Come on! We need to make our plans,” she says excitedly.

  “Sure, why not,” I say, letting her pull me along. I guess, I think as I hear the guys arguing over what side I should debut on, I don’t have to worry about terrifying people with my looks.

  I turn my illusion watch on, anyway.

  ***

  Superior pulls to a stop over the small bush town nearest their home. There are about two hundred people in all that live there, and they all know exactly who he is. In fact, several of them yell a greeting up to him as he lands. “Superior, good to see you,” the mayor says, heading for him with a hand out. Superior only knows he’s the mayor because he told him. Otherwise he looks exactly like everyone else. “We were just talking to your wife. She’s not very happy. Can’t blame her, we all had some pretty important things coming up on that ship. My family is almost completely out of sugar.”

  “We were finally getting a new septic system,” a woman calls over to them. “At least that one floated, though. It would have been a hundred miles away if Tatiana hadn’t dragged it back.”

  “Clifford!” Tatiana says, making him look over to the ocean. “You are in big trouble, mister!”

  “Can it wait until we’re alone, honey?” Superior asks as the entire town starts to laugh. “Why don’t we get your beads?”

  “You will get my beads, yes, as well as all of the other things that have sunk,” she says. “I have brought the ship up, you can patch that up, as well. It is their living hood, yes?”

  “Yes, dear,” he says, moving to float over the water and hold out his hands. “Huh…”

  “What?” Tatiana asks, flying over to stand next to him. “Are they already gone?”

  “I’ll get what I can,” he says, moving out further and holding out his arms. Beads and bags of dry goods come up from the ocean, floating all around him. “Everyone ready?” he asks the group gathered on the shore. The goods go to them and they grab them out of the air, piling them up to the side. The beads that caused this problem are poured into a bowl that one of the women helpfully holds out for him. Once he’s gotten all he can find (and several pearls that he’d “mistaken” for beads) he turns to the ship that Tatiana had helpfully placed in the shallows.

  He looks it over, finally dropping down to the ground next to the gaping hole in the bottom. A frown crosses his face as he looks it over. “A rock?” Tatiana offers.

  “A fist,” he says. “Someone sank this ship on purpose.”

  “Why would they do that?” Tatiana demands.

  “What’s missing from the delivery?” he asks, turning to the norms.

  “Um… I’ve got a list, here,” the mayor says, holding up a sheet of paper. Superior takes it from him, looking it over quickly.

  “We’re missing female clothing, camping supplies, and a lot of food, Sure, some of it might have been dragged out with the tide, but not as much as is listed, here,” Superior says. “Why would someone sink a ship for that?”

  “At least we did not have a fuel leak!” Tatiana says.

  “Can you—can you fix it?” a man asks from behind them, making Superior turn to look at him. The man has four little children behind him, along with his wife. “It’s more than just our business, it’s our home. We thought for certain that we’d lost everything—”

  “Who are you, mister?” one of the little boys asks.

  “I’m…” Superior says, “just a retired old man, son. Don’t worry about that. And yeah, I can fix it.”

  “You’re Superior, aren’t you,” the wife says, looking shocked.

  “No, ma’am, Superior died a long time ago,” the mayor says, walking over quickly.

  “But no other super—”

  “Do you want your ship fixed or not?” the mayor demands under his breath.

  “Oh! Oh, right. Yes. Superior died a long time ago,” the woman says quickly.

  “And we’d prefer you kept this little run-in to yourself. Also, since you’re new to the area, if you happen to see a flying saucer, or such, you didn’t see it.”

  “I see,” she says. “So… you’re hiding aliens, too?”

  Everyone just stares at her, until the sound of metal screeching makes them turn to watch Superior work. The hole is growing larger, much to the ship’s owner’s shock. “What are you—”

  The ship rises out of the water and the water pours out of the hole. When it stops, the metal starts to close over, the gaping hole mending together. It’s completely gone within seconds. “My son would do better with the wiring, but…” Superior says, focusing for a long moment. “There we go. One fixed ship.”

  “I can’t thank you, enough,” the ship owner says. “
You’ve saved us.”

  “It’s just the way of things around here,” Superior says with a slight smile. “Honey, did you get all of your beads?”

  “I think we are still missing some,” Tatiana complains. “We will replace them with the pearls. Thank you, my love.” She comes over, kissing him on the cheek. “But you are still in trouble. You did get me one of those amusing watches, as well, yes?”

  “Of course I did,” he lies, shamelessly, “I won’t get them until later, though, so we’ll both have to look forward to it.”

  ***

  “Okay,” Emily says, reaching for the chair in front of me. We’re at lunch, sitting at one of the long tables. I was planning on getting some food and heading to my room, but Lance had yelled at me to come and sit with the guys—so now I’ve got Lance on my right, Freddy on my left, and Brandon—

  “You’re about to sit down on Brandon,” I say, mid-bite.

  “I am?” she says, looking at the chair until Brandon sheepishly comes into view. “Whoops, sorry, Brandon,” she says. She grabs the chair next to him, only to look at us. “No one’s sitting here, right?”

  “No, no one’s sitting there,” Freddy says, grinning. “At least not that we know of.”

  “So you two are working together for class, right?” Lance asks, looking at me with a little smile. “Should we leave?”

  “Nah, it’s fine,” Emily says, “if you don’t mind me interrupting, that is.”

  “I think I should be involved in this,” Ace says, making me look up as he approaches the table.

  “Should we move? I mean, you’ve got work to do—” Lance starts out, looking a bit worried now.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” I say, placing a hand on his shoulder as he starts to get up. I might look like a normal girl right now, but he squirms for all of a second before giving up.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he says.

  “I’ll go—” Brandon starts out.

  “How about we just make it a round table?” Ace asks. The world seems to ripple for a second before we’re sitting at a round table. He drops down next to Emily, placing his tray on the table. “There we go. So your name is Sandra, right? And you’re…” he looks at me for a long moment, and the illusion I’m wearing flickers before disappearing for a moment. “Awesome,” he says, looking stunned.

  “Hey, quit that,” I say.

  “He based the watch on me, so turning it off isn’t hard,” he says.

  “Hey, Morgan! Ace is bullying Sandra!” Freddy yells.

  “Ace, don’t you DARE—”

  “I was just looking, I swear!” Ace says, looking panicked, all of a sudden. “Here, the illusion is back on, see?”

  It flicks back on, but I just stare at him before calmly finishing my drink. “Don’t do that, again,” I say. “I like looking normal.”

  “Okay, fine,” he says. “You look cooler as yourself, but if you say so.”

  “And yelling for Morgan had no impact, whatsoever, huh?” Emily teases, evilly.

  “Hey, Sandra, did you get all the gold you needed?” Lance asks me. “We could see if Zoe would just accept that rather than try to convert it to cash—I bet gold could be used in some of her machines, or something.”

  “Yeah?” I say. “That’s a good idea—I was going to make another run tonight, but I usually get a decent nap in around now.” I yawn, wondering if I can skip the rest of this school day.

  “You play Technico World?” Ace asks.

  “She just started,” Lance says. “She got to level ten before being defeated.”

  “I’m at level seven, now,” I say. “Why our stupid levels reset, I’ve got no idea. That’s not how other games go.”

  “They reset because they signify just how far you’ve gotten towards defeating Nico,” Ace says. “By the time you log back in, he’s already fixed whatever it is you’ve gotten set up.”

  “I’ve heard that when you beat him, you reach level one hundred,” Emily says. “Nobody’s done it yet.”

  “I almost swear he has a warning when someone gets to ten percent,” Ace says. “He turns his attention on you, then.”

  “I got wiped out around that stage,” Lance agrees, “several times.”

  “We need to talk about the burning building thing, though,” Emily says. “The most traditional way to deal with a burning building is to pour a water reserve on it, right? Usually there’s one on the roof, since it’s convenient for supers and this is Kansas City, but is that how we want to do it?”

  “Why not?” I say. “You go in, save all the people, and I’ll pour water on it.”

  “It’s just been done so often,” she says. “If we’re treating this like your debut, it should be something flashier! Do you have, I don’t know, super breath?”

  I stare at her. “Do I look like I have super breath?” And then I cup my large hand over my mouth and breathe into it, just to check. “Nah, doesn’t smell that bad.”

  The guys start laughing at me. I don’t dare tell them that I’d been serious. Instead I go back to eating, since I haven’t finished all of my food. “So… I guess pouring water on it will work,” Emily says, reluctantly. “Do you know what you’re capable of doing?”

  “I can dig holes,” I say. “I can take the building down pretty easy, too, if that works. It’d probably put the fire out.”

  “Yeah, but it wouldn’t save the day,” she says. “What can you do in the game?”

  “I’m good at finding rare gems, gold, and stuff like that. We could hire firefighters,” I say.

  “Don’t they already work for the city, though?” Brandon says quietly, even as the others start laughing again.

  “You can’t do that,” Ace says, grinning. “You’re the hero, in this case. You’ve got to put the fire out, yourself—or at least get all of the norms and animals out in a dramatic fashion, so the firefighters can take over.”

  “We need a way to find all the norms and animals quickly,” I say. “I can find gems, sure, but I’m not that good at living beings.”

  “Well, lots of people wear jewelry,” Lance says. “Could you find them by that?”

  “Yeah, but that’s not everyone, and it depends on if the jewelry is real or not. I can find a diamond, but a chunk of glass? Not likely.”

  “We should have the Hall make a statement that everyone needs to wear some sort of stone,” Freddy says. We just took at him. “What? It made sense in my head!”

  “You mean the head with the lizard shaped hairdo?” I say. “That explains it.”

  He gives me a dirty look. “There’s nothing wrong with my hair,” he says, as I match him, stare for stare. “I like it this way.”

  “I cut it for him,” Ace says.

  I turn my stare on him. “So you went along with the stupidity, huh?”

  “My hair is retro, not stupid,” Freddy protests. “You’re just jealous because you don’t have—” he takes all of a second to catch himself, “a lizard on your head.”

  “Or hair?” I offer. “I’d rather have a slab of rock than a lizard.”

  “I could fix that,” Ace says.

  “What, you want to give me a lizard sculpture on my head?” I say. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

  “I could make it look less… slab-like, at least,” he says. “I’m an artist, too. I can sculpt.”

  I look at him, and then I look at Freddy’s head. “Yeeeeah, no thanks,” I say, standing. “I think I’m done for the day.”

  “But what about our burning building job?” Emily asks.

  “Wake me up when it’s time,” I say, only to stop as Nico steps in front of me. “What?”

  “Why don’t you come with me for a little while,” he says. “We should talk.”

  “I was going to take a nap—”

  “I’ve got jawbreakers.”

  “Where are we going?” I ask.

  “Does she follow anyone that offers candy?” I hear Ace ask behind us.

  “Well… it�
��s not like he’s going to kidnap her, or anything,” Lance says. “Besides, she was planning on skipping, anyway.”

  “Good point.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “So… what’s the lecture going to be?” I say as I look around the Science room. There are long tables lined up and a desk in front. All of the tables are covered with machinery. “Going to tell me that I can’t skip school in the middle of the day?”

  “You skipped school for an entire year, I figure it’s too late to go into that,” Nico says, dropping down in the chair at the desk. “I just figured you’d want to talk about it.”

  “About what?” I ask.

  “Going to meet your mother,” he says.

  I go still, feeling completely off-guard by that. “What?”

  “You found out about her, so you should want to see her, right? I know I would. I did, in a way.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, starting for the door.

  “I barely saw my father while I was growing up. He was always away, out saving the world. I was around your age at the time when I decided to do it. I’d just thrown my stepmother out of the house—”

  “You did what?” I say, my jaw dropping.

  “She was trying to make Liz tougher than I am. Liz hadn’t even come into her powers at the time,” he says. “It was pretty much child abuse. I threw her out of the house, told her not to come back. She never did. It left me with a little girl to raise and an old man that was never there.”

  “So you went to find him,” I say, absently sitting down in one of the larger chairs in the room.

  “Yeah,” he says. “I couldn’t even fly at the time, so I ran all the way to Saint Louis, just to see him at one of his appearances. He didn’t even notice me in the crowd.”

  “Did you have an illusion watch on?”

  “I wore a hat.”

  “How big was the crowd?” I ask. It startles a laugh out of him.

  “It was massive,” he admits. “But I was a kid—I was HIS kid. I expected him to be able to pick me out of a crowd. I went home, feeling completely abandoned. It felt like his job was more important than his family ever would be. I wasn’t wrong, either. Even though Sparky was gone, we still barely saw him. He would come home only when he needed to sleep. Just like I am, now, he only had to sleep once every three or four days. He would head straight for his bed and sleep so deep that I felt like I was stuck guarding him, as well as Liz.”