by Lucas Flint
Fro-Zen didn’t even get to scream before the energy blast struck him directly in the chest. The roar of the energy blast completely blocked out all other sounds; I couldn’t even hear myself think for a moment.
But the explosion lasted for maybe a second before passing away. When I looked at where Fro-Zen had been standing mere moments ago, there was nothing other than a smoking, blackened spot on the roof, along with his burnt boots. Aside from that, it appeared that my energy blast had totally incinerated Fro-Zen. And I knew he was dead, because the puppets below collapsed into piles of ice and the temperature in the air rose significantly, although it was still very cold.
That stunned me. I hadn’t known my energy blasts could be powerful enough to incinerate a full-grown adult. That made me wonder just what the upper limits of my eye lasers were; I’d have to find out sometime.
My thoughts were interrupted by a groan from Rubberman. Remembering what had happened to him, I forgot all about my eye beams as I scrambled back onto the roof. Rubberman lay on the roof not far away from me in a half-fetal position, his hands covering his bloody stomach wound where Fro-Zen had stabbed him moments ago. The snow and ice around him was stained red with his blood and smelled weird, too, a weird mixture of snow and blood.
“Rubberman!” I shouted, running over to him and kneeling beside him. “Are you okay? Can you hear me?”
Rubberman groaned, but he looked up at me. “Yes. I think I will be okay, but I need to see a doctor fast. My healing factor should keep the wound from infecting, but only until I can get proper medical care.”
“Okay, okay,” I said. I looked around in worry. “But the walls—”
I was interrupted by the sound of helicopter blades above and looked up to see the police helicopter from before coming down through the gap in the curved walls. I immediately began waving my arms, trying to catch the attention of the pilot, which seemed to be working, because the helicopter was making its way down to the school roof. Of course, Rubberman and I did kind of stick out like sore thumbs in our superhero costumes, but either way, I was just glad that someone had come to save us before Rubberman’s wound got any worse.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
One week later …
Nowadays, I’m pretty content with my superpowers. Maybe destructive eye beams aren’t as practical as, say, super speed or flight, but once you got the hang of them, they could be used for all sorts of things, like heating up a cold cup of coffee quickly or melting thick ice.
Unfortunately, they still couldn’t get me to work on time, so on Monday morning, a week after our battle with Fro-Zen, I got up, took a shower, ate breakfast, and said good bye to my parents before hopping on my bike and zooming through the streets of Golden City. I had been so tired last night that I didn’t wake up until later than usual, which meant that I might be late, unless I went really fast. I knew that Rubberman wouldn’t be that angry with me if I was late, but I still disliked being late for work. Adams, at least, would give me a hard time about it and, because today was going to be a long day, I didn’t really want to have to deal with his snarky comments all day.
As always, Golden City’s streets were pretty quiet this morning, so I had some time to reflect on the events of the past week as I biked. It was hard to believe that it had been only a week since Rubberman and I defeated Fro-Zen on top of Harold Golden High; it seemed like a lifetime ago now, even though it had only been a week ago.
The police helicopter had managed to get Rubberman to Golden City General, where he was treated for his wound. Turns out that his stomach wound looked much worse than it actually was; he had somehow managed to keep Fro-Zen from stabbing any truly vital organs that would have required extensive surgery. As a result, Rubberman was stitched up and released from the hospital in two days, although he was given strict orders not to engage in any crime-fighting or other strenuous activities until his wounds completely healed. That seemed to bum Rubberman out, but at the same time, I could tell he was relieved, because he needed to spend some time on other aspects of his business that didn’t require as much fighting deadly supervillains.
Speaking of supervillains, Fro-Zen was most definitely dead. The police who came in the helicopter found no evidence that Fro-Zen had run away or escaped. It appeared that I had indeed killed him, although that did not fix all of the problems that he left behind.
For one, Harold Golden High was going to remain shut down for the foreseeable future. Aside from the huge ice walls (which I heard were going to be taken apart and then used to make ice sculptures in Golden City Park, although I didn’t know if that was true or not), the school itself was still being thawed out from being completely frozen over. There was no definite deadline for when it would open up again, but Mayor Thomas told parents that he would have it opened again within the next month. I had no idea how they were going to ensure that, but I suspected he just said that to get panicking parents off his back. Typical political stuff, I guess.
The hostages, at least, were all okay. As it turned out, Fro-Zen had not been lying when he said that he had not harmed the hostages; however, Mr. Peters kept telling everyone that if he had been a superhero, Fro-Zen would have been defeated much sooner than he was. I found that kind of funny, because if it hadn’t been for Mr. Peters’ serum, I wouldn’t have gained my powers and therefore would not have been able to defeat Fro-Zen and save him. So in a kind of roundabout way, he was right, although of course I didn’t tell him because I didn’t want him to know my real identity.
Speaking of identities, Rubberman finally introduced me to the public once he got out of the hospital. Of course, even before he introduced me at the press conference, there had been rumors swirling around about Rubberman’s new sidekick named Beams. My friend, Frank, called me to talk about the rumors, but I didn’t say much because I was still bound by law not to reveal my secret identity to anyone. And when Beams was finally introduced to the public, people online began speculating about his real identity, although I was so busy over the last week that I didn’t pay much attention to those online rumors. Rubberman told me not to get too hung up on what people said about me online anyway.
One of the nicer things about my introduction to the world was the merch deals that seemed to come like magic. Rubberman kept getting phone calls and emails from businesses interested in making merch based on me, while companies that he’d already made deals with were calling to inquire about whether he would be willing to license them rights to my likeness in addition to the rights of his own likeness that he’d already licensed them. Even the director from the upcoming Rubberman movie had called about possibly getting me in it, which I really wanted to brag about, but due to laws regulating sidekicks, all I could do was talk about it with my family.
Mom, of course, had been mortified when she learned that I’d fought a real-life supervillain, while Dad had been proud that I’d been the one to land the killing blow. I tried to tell Mom that Fro-Zen was deader than dead and that we’d never have to worry about him ever again, but she seemed really paranoid and tense over the next week; for example, she stopped putting ice in our drinks because she was convinced that Fro-Zen might use one of our ice cubes to choke us or something. Granted, she is starting to get over it as time goes on and Fro-Zen doesn’t appear in our ice maker, but I’m now wondering if this is how Mom will act every time I scuffle with a supervillain.
As for James, he called me from college to tell me that he was proud of me for taking down Fro-Zen. He even sounded kind of jealous, which I didn’t understand until I remembered that James, when he had been a sidekick, had never actually fought a supervillain before, much less defeated one. That mean that, for the first time in my life, I had done something that James hadn’t. I tried not to brag, but honestly, I did brag just a little when I talked to James, because I figured I earned it.
Because school was out for a while, Rubberman increased my hours to thirty hours a week, at least until school got back in. He also had me train more in
the Rubber Room; well, technically, Adams trained me, while Rubberman, due to having to recover from his injuries, just sat off to the side and gave me advice about how to throw a punch or kick every now and then. Rubberman told me that he wanted me to learn how to fight with my fists and that that would be my number one priority for a while, but he also mentioned possibly teaching me how to drive the Rubbermobile or at least how to turn it on and perform basic maintenance on it. That excited me so much that I found it hard to focus on much else, which led to more than a few sharp remarks from Adams whenever I lost focus during my training sessions.
In fact, the thought of learning how to drive the Rubbermobile distracted me now, which was why I almost ran into a blonde-haired girl as I turned the corner. At the last second, I turned my bike and went off the pavement and onto the street, but I didn’t fall over. I came to a stop to look at the girl and said, “Whoa, sorry, I didn’t see—”
My words caught in my throat. It was Greta again, looking pretty much like how she had looked when I last ran into her like this. The only difference was the cross necklace hanging off her neck; aside from that, she was dressed in the same pink skirt and white coat that she had been before.
Greta, however, just smiled a brilliant smile at me and said, “Oh, it’s fine. I should have been watching where I was going.” She looked at me more closely. Her eyes were nearly as blue as Fro-Zen’s had been, but much kinder. “Hey, you’re Alex, right? Didn’t we meet like this before a while ago?”
“Y-Yeah,” I said. I was still stuttering when I spoke to her; god damn it, when would I stop being an idiot around her? “Kind weird, right?”
“It’s like deja vu all over again,” said Greta. “Last time, though, you fell onto the street and hurt yourself. I guess you’ve gotten better at controlling your bike, huh?”
“Definitely,” I said. “I practice all the time. It’s my hobby.”
I wanted to slam my face into the handle bars. I was starting to think that I would rather have had James’ smooth moves with the girls as a superpower than my eye beams; at least then I wouldn’t say stupid things like that in front of pretty girls.
Greta, however, just giggled, probably figuring I was an idiot and idiots said things like that. “Well, at least you didn’t drop your license this time. Say, where are you going, anyway?”
“Uh …” I tried to think of an answer that wouldn’t raise her suspicions. “Somewhere important. What about you?”
“Going to have breakfast with my friends and then do some shopping,” said Greta. “With school being out, we’re going to shop all day long. It’s going to be awesome.”
“Uh, cool, I guess,” I said. I glanced at my watch and started. “Oh, damn, I mean, uh, I got to go. Have fun shopping with your friends.”
Before Greta could say anything, I took off on my bike again, hoping to get to work before it was too late. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was missing a big opportunity here, so when I reached the next corner, I stopped and shouted to Greta, “Hey, Greta!”
Greta had been about to walk around the corner out of sight, but she stopped when I called to her and she looked over at me. “Yes?”
I steeled myself and shouted, in the most casual voice I could muster, “Want to grab lunch sometime? ”
To my relief, Greta actually smiled. “Sure! Just text me with the time and date later and we’ll get something set up.”
“Sure,” I said. “Uh, bye!”
I turned and resumed biking through the streets, a big grin on my face. I couldn’t believe it. I had never asked out a girl before and Greta had actually accepted my invitation. I couldn’t wait to tell Rubberman and Adams; well, Rubberman at least. I doubted Adams would care; he’d probably just make some derogatory comment about teenage love or whatever.
But I didn’t care, because I was pretty sure that I would be smiling all day long, regardless of whatever Adams or anyone else said.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Sasha Munroe sat in her office at the headquarters of Munroe Acquisitions, reading an email on her laptop from one of her agents about buying the rights to an up-and-coming superhero in New York. It sounded like a good deal to her, and she had honed her business instincts over such a long time that she trusted them even more than her own advisers. Of course, her instincts were still not quite as good as Father’s had been, but she was still better at business than most, especially the superhero business, which was full of so many newbies that it was pretty easy to profit from their naivete and bad decision making skills. She sent a reply to the agent telling him to keep pursuing the deal and to give her updates about it.
Once she sent the email, Sasha leaned back in her chair and sighed. She had been working nonstop all through the night, making deals, calling business associates, sending messages to her agents and managers, asking for favors from her favorite politicians, and doing a whole bunch of other chores besides. She knew it wasn’t good to neglect her sleep, but she could get so obsessed with her work that ten hours would fly by when it only felt like ten minutes. She decided that she was going to turn off her computer and head home for the night.
That was when she heard movement and looked up to see a tall Japanese man in dark ninja garb standing in the corner of her office. She didn’t know when he had gotten there; the door was closed, as was the window, and she had not heard them open. She was also sure that he had not been standing there even five seconds ago, although given how exhausted she was, Sasha couldn’t be sure that she had not neglected the ninja due to sleep deprivation. Then again, she had hired him precisely due to his ability to get in and out of anywhere without being seen or heard unless he wanted to. Sasha sometimes suspected that he had a superpower, but the ninja had never confirmed nor denied it whenever she asked him about it.
“Takeshi,” said Sasha. She rubbed her eyes and yawned. “What are you doing here? You know I don’t like it when you just show up like this.”
“I have come with a report about Rubberman and Beams,” said Takeshi. She noticed he didn’t apologize; then again, he never did, which was both an infuriating and admirable quality of his.
Sasha’s tiredness immediately vanished. She leaned forward, looking at Takeshi with more interest. “What do you have to report?”
“Rubberman is resuming Beam’s training in using his powers and hand-to-hand combat,” said Takeshi. “He is also recovering from the stab wound that Fro-Zen inflicted on him last week and should be completely healed by the end of the week.”
“And the police have not found any hint of Fro-Zen anywhere, yes?” said Sasha.
“Yes,” said Takeshi, nodding. “Beams’ blast totally destroyed him. As far as we know, Fro-Zen is totally dead. His only remains are his boots, but they have no incriminating evidence on them to link him to you or anyone else in Munroe Acquisitions.”
Sasha sighed again. That had been the part that worried her most. She had been working with Fro-Zen when he came back to Golden City, offering him a place to hide where the police would not find him until he could deal with Rubberman. She had pretended to be sympathetic to Fro-Zen’s concerns about corruption in the superhero industry, claiming that she also wished to take it down, but in truth, she had only seen Fro-Zen as a means to an end. “That’s good to hear.”
“Perhaps, but this all seems fruitless to me, madame,” said Takeshi. “After all, Rubberman is not going to sell his business to you now, as you wanted. It seems like we wasted all of this time, effort, and money for nothing.”
Sasha understood Takeshi’s point. The plan had been for Fro-Zen to kill the students and faculty in the school before Rubberman could stop him (hence why she had Takeshi knock him out in the Elastic Cave the night before Fro-Zen’s attack). That would have resulted in a citywide, maybe even countrywide, backlash against Rubberman for his failure to save the school. Then Sasha would move in and offer to buy the Rubberman business from Dennis, which would have been worthless to him, since no one would want to do b
usiness with a failed superhero like him. She bet that Dennis would sell it to her at a much lower price than he normally would have in a desperate bid to get rid of it. She probably would have done something about Fro-Zen at some point, too, since she couldn’t allow anyone to link him to her.
Of course, now that wasn’t going to happen, but Sasha said, “Just be glad that you and I didn’t go to jail for this. Sometimes, you have to take what victories you can, even if they aren’t what you wanted. Now, is that all you have to report for now?”
“Yes, madame,” said Takeshi, nodding. “Do you have any further orders for me? Do you want me to attack Rubberman again, while he is weak?”
Sasha shook her head. “No. Stay to the shadows and don’t interact directly with Rubberman, Beams, or Adams. Keep returning with regular reports and don’t do anything else without my knowledge or permission.”
“Yes, madame,” said Takeshi with a bow.
Sasha blinked once and Takeshi was gone. She wasn’t sure how he vanished so quickly, but she didn’t care. She just yawned and stood up, ready to go back home to her apartment. Maybe instead of a quick nap, she’d just go and get a full eight hours of sleep.
But before she left, Sasha looked at the article on her laptop’s browser. It was the press release sent by Rubberman to all of the major news stations, introducing his sidekick Beams to the world. Beams stood by Rubberman’s side looking kind of awkward, but Sasha knew better than to underestimate that kid now.
He ruined all of my plans, Sasha thought, her grip on the arms of her chair tightening so much that her knuckles turned white. Had he not woken up Rubberman, I would already have money from the Rubberman license flowing into my bank account like water. He’s still ignorant and naive, but sometimes it is the ignorant and naive that you need to worry about, because they have no idea what they’re doing and so can’t be predicted by conventional methods.
That meant that Sasha would have to deal with him, too, if she was going to get ownership of Rubberman’s business. As she closed her laptop, grabbed her coat, and made her way out of her office, she was already making plans to take Beams down. She wouldn’t strike him directly; no, that just wasn’t her style. She’d find a way to hit him so hard that he wouldn’t even suspect that she was behind it.
