by Lee Bacon
“Okay, so we’ve got an alien golf ball that doesn’t seem to like corn dogs very much.” Milton nodded once. “Makes perfect sense to me.”
Our conversation came to a stop when a slot in the silver ball clicked open. A sound buzzed from inside the opening. For several seconds, nothing seemed to be happening. Only the flicker of noise from within the silver object. And then I realized it. Everything had suddenly gotten … darker.
Sophie and Milton must’ve noticed it too, because they were both gazing upward. I did the same, and that was when I saw something impossible to fathom. Darkness was forming above us, like a shadow stretching across the sky. Whatever it was, the effect was caused by the silver object. As the thing whirred, the darkness above formed into three enormous black letters, hanging over everything.
V E X
6
There was no time to stick around to see if the alien golf ball spelled out anything else. Sirens were growing louder. And with a busted fountain, a gigantic charred corn dog, and a crater in the concrete next to us, there’d be a lot of explaining to do if we were on the scene when the authorities showed up.
Exiting AwesomeWorld, we headed across the parking lot toward the limo, where Stanley was waiting. Along the way, we passed frightened crowds of people, all of them staring up at the enormous black letters looming in the sky. Climbing into the limo, Sophie grabbed the control box in her seat and turned on the radio. The news was already buzzing with the disturbance. And it wasn’t just AwesomeWorld. Reports were coming in from dozens of other locations across the globe, and the list was growing by the minute. It was the same everywhere. A flaming object crashes to Earth. A silver sphere clicks open to project three dark letters across the sky. VEX.
Sophie turned the radio off, staring grim-faced at the control in her hand. Each of us knew what it meant. Phineas Vex was back.
All of a sudden, it felt like the air had been sucked out of the limo. Phineas Vex was the billionaire who’d founded VexaCorp Industries, the world’s leading supplier of products for the supervillain community. He was also the evil maniac who’d abducted my parents and tried to kill Sophie and Captain Justice.
The vision of Vex flashed across my mind like lightning. It was a face I still saw sometimes when I couldn’t sleep at night. The scar running down his cheek. Him glaring at me from across the fiery underground lair with his one good eye.
In the end, we’d managed to escape, while Vex had been buried beneath twenty tons of burning rubble. It had seemed impossible that he could’ve survived the collapse. And yet his body had never been found.
That was seven months ago. Since then, nobody had seen or heard from Vex.
Until now.
“Why do you think he’s doing it?” Milton asked as the limo pulled out of the AwesomeWorld parking lot.
“He’s sending out a message.” A chill shivered down the length of my spine. “He’s letting the world know that he’s still out there.”
“But if Vex is still alive …” Sophie paused, her hands twisted into a worried knot. “That means we’re in serious danger.”
I knew she was right. We were the ones who’d thwarted his plans. We were the reason he’d been buried and left for dead. And if he wanted revenge, we were the first ones he’d go after.
I had no idea what any of us would do when that time came. But I did know of one way that we might at least prepare ourselves.
“I’ve made up my mind about Gyfted and Talented.” My jaw clenched as I stared out the window at the dark letters in the sky. “Count me in.”
By the time I got home, I expected my parents to be worried sick. But they’d been too preoccupied with work all day to turn on the news. So it was up to me to fill them in on the strange events at AwesomeWorld and the return of Phineas Vex.
“This is just the beginning.” Worry was etched across Mom’s face. “We’ll be hearing from him again soon. And when the time comes, we’ll need to be ready.”
“Just to be sure, I’ll step up the security around the house,” Dad said. “And maybe I can upgrade Elliot with some self-defense functions.”
Mom shot me a nervous look. Elliot was dangerous enough without fighting skills.
“There’s one other thing I wanted to tell you,” I said. “I’ve decided I’m going to Gyfted and Talented.”
The program was still a complete mystery, but any thought of backing out now was instantly overshadowed by Vex. Just the idea of facing him again made me feel jittery and unprepared, like taking a test I hadn’t studied for. Except in this case, getting a bad grade was the least of my worries.
Ever since discovering I had this freaky superpower, the closest thing I’d had to training was the couple of weeks I’d spent reading and rereading a book my parents had given me—The Handbook for Gyfted Children. The tips and advice I’d read there might have offered a good introduction, but now I needed to take the next step. And I could only do that at Gyfted & Talented.
Over the next few days, my parents helped me get ready to leave home. Under the heading “What to Bring” in the Gyfted & Talented brochure, it said that everyone attending should pack a duffel bag with clothes, overnight supplies, and essential items.
“I wonder what they mean by ‘essential items’?” Mom paused, pursing her lips in thought. “Just to be on the safe side, better pack these.” She unzipped my duffel bag and stuffed in mosquito spray, a flashlight, and a fire extinguisher.
The night before leaving for Gyfted & Talented, I took another glance at the invitation. Be ready early, it warned. Very early. But this did nothing to prepare me for the next morning. It was still dark in my bedroom when Mom shook me awake.
“What time is it?” I mumbled.
“Six,” Mom said.
“In the morning?”
Her blurred form nodded. “Time to get up, honey.”
“Too early. Try back in four hours.”
I closed my eyes. Maybe if I just pretended to be asleep, she would leave me alone. Of course, the last time I’d refused to get out of bed, Mom had gone into her lab and gotten a vial of the Instant Fungus formula. A few drops, and my toes had turned the color of spoiled broccoli.
“The bus is waiting,” Mom said. “Time to go.”
“Fine!” Letting out an angry groan, I staggered out of bed and got dressed.
A little later, my lazy footsteps clomped down the stairs, accompanied by the thump of the duffel bag I was dragging behind me. Mom and Dad greeted me at the front door.
“I’m going to miss you sooo much, honey!” Mom said, giving me a huge hug. She squeezed me until I felt like my lungs were about to burst. When she released me, her eyes were glistening with tears.
“Two months is a long time.” Dad jostled me by the shoulder. “I hope we recognize you when you get back.”
I said goodbye, promising that I would train hard and call at least once a week.
“Just one thing before you go.” Dad plucked a small brass bell off a table.
“What’s that for?” I asked.
“You’ll see.” A sly smile formed on Dad’s face as he rang the bell.
A moment later, Elliot burst into the entryway. His big eyes glowed from within his metallic, cube-shaped head. He wobbled on paddle feet toward us. In one hand he was holding a coal-black slice of toast.
“I trained him to do that!” Dad said, an obvious note of pride in his voice.
“To do what?” I asked. “Burn toast?”
“Not that! I’m talking about the bell trick. Now whenever he hears a bell, Elliot comes to your service.”
“You ringed, sir?” Elliot said.
“Rang,” Dad corrected in a gentle voice. “The correct word is ‘rang.’ ”
“Many apologies, siiiiiir. But I do not know the definition of the word ‘israng.’ ”
“No, no—not ‘israng.’ What I said was—” Dad shook his head, inhaling sharply. “Never mind. The important thing is that it works. I’ll bet Captain Justice�
�s robot butler doesn’t know how to respond to a bell. And I’ve got lots of upgrades planned. By the time you get back, he’ll be like a whole new robot.”
“Let’s hope so,” Mom muttered under her breath.
“I prepared breakfast for you, Mr. Joooshuaakkk!” Elliot handed me the piece of charred toast. “In case you grow huuuungry on the trip.”
“Thanks, Elliot.” I stuck the burned toast into my duffel bag, zipped it closed, and stepped outside.
A blue and white bus was parked at the curb. The words GYFTED & TALENTED were painted across the side.
Milton was waiting for me to get on. After borrowing my letter and brochure, he’d talked his mom into letting him attend Gyfted & Talented by telling her it was a superhero-themed summer camp. Now he just had to hope that the people running the program were okay with it too.
“Hope this works,” he said, gripping his forged invitation.
Once we entered the bus, Milton and I came to a sudden halt. There was nobody in the driver’s seat. I figured the driver must’ve just stepped out for a minute, but as soon as we were both inside, the doors clattered shut behind us and the engine roared to life. The gearshift next to the driver’s seat jiggled, and the bus shot forward. Milton and I stumbled down the aisle, nearly losing our footing before we landed in an empty seat.
I thought I heard a man’s voice behind me say, “Careful, kids.” But when I glanced at the driver’s seat, it was still empty. The bus lurched to the right at the end of the street, hopping the curb and barely avoiding a stop sign.
“What do you think’s driving this thing?” I asked Milton, gripping the edge of the seat as we jolted over a pothole.
“Who cares? I got on. That’s all that matters.”
I cast another uncertain glance toward the front of the bus. The empty seat, the steering wheel jolting from one side to the other. Whatever was driving didn’t seem to have a very firm grasp of traffic laws. The bus swerved around corners and shot right through the intersection on a yellow light. Luckily, the roads were mostly empty this early in the day.
And that wasn’t all that was mostly empty. Glancing around the bus, I saw that only two of the other seats were occupied. Sophie was sitting in one of them. And in the other was a girl I didn’t know. She looked about our age, with dark hair and olive skin. I was sure I’d never seen her before, but when our eyes met, she looked at me like she’d known me all my life.
I kept my eyes to myself for the rest of the trip, which turned out not to be very long at all. I’d assumed we would make a lot more stops and cover many more miles before reaching our top-secret destination, but it turned out that Gyfted & Talented was only a short drive from where I lived.
The bus skidded to a halt in the parking lot of a shopping center. Peering out the window, I spotted a bank, a grocery store, and a smoothie shop. And right in front of the bus was a storefront with the sign painted above the door in splashy golden letters:
TANTASTIC
I scratched my head. We were going to spend the next two months training in a tanning salon?
“All right, kids. Everybody out of the bus.”
There it was again. The voice I’d heard earlier. Everyone else must’ve heard it too, because Milton, Sophie, and the other girl began dragging their luggage to the front. I followed Milton, who paused to stare uncertainly at the vacant driver’s seat. Reaching out, he poked his finger into the air in front of the steering wheel.
“Ouch!” cried the voice. “My eye!”
Milton and I took this as our cue to get moving. We hurried out of the bus and into the parking lot, trailed by a stream of angry curses from the driver’s seat.
Outside in the cool morning air, I stared up at the sign for Tantastic. Like everything else in the shopping center, it was closed. A thick metal grate covered the front of the store.
“This can’t be the right place,” Sophie said. “Can it?”
The other girl—the one who’d seemed to know me so well—set down her duffel bag. “It’s the right place.”
Sophie gave her a skeptical look. “How do you know?”
“I just … do.”
The girl stared at the storefront expectantly. And sure enough, the metal grate began to rumble upward, revealing the front door behind it.
Tantastic looked like it was open for business.
“So, what do we do now?” Milton asked.
Sophie shrugged. “I guess we find out what kind of tanning options they have.”
7
I’m not sure what I expected. Maybe a secret command center. Another monster attack. Instead, it looked like a normal tanning salon. Merchandise was displayed along one wall. Sunscreen, self-tanner, body lotions, sunglasses. In one corner was a tanning bed.
An employee was standing behind a cash register at the front counter. She was tall, with bleached blond hair and a tan that was somewhere between bronze and roasted chicken. Her brown, leathery lips turned into a smile.
“Hiiiiiii!” she said, stretching out the word into at least three syllables. “How can I help you kids today?”
I glanced over at Milton and Sophie. They were both staring back at the woman with their mouths open. Even the other girl—the one who seemed so sure about everything else—looked uncertain.
“First time tanning?” The woman leaned forward on the counter, her frosted blond hair falling across her orange shoulders like an avalanche. “I can always tell. So let me guess—now that summer’s here, you kids want to get your beach bodies looking good, am I right?”
“Er, actually,” I stammered, “we were sort of—”
“No need to be embarrassed,” she interrupted. “I’m not here to judge your pale, pathetic bodies. Believe me, I didn’t always have this perfect tan.” She indicated her orangey skin. “I had to work to look this good.”
“We’re not here to get a tan!” I said insistently.
This seemed to get the employee’s attention. She stared back at me. For a second or two, the only sound was the repeated click-click of her painted fingernail against the counter.
“Well,” she said. “If you’re not interested in a tan, then why are you here?”
Sophie stepped forward and placed the slip of paper onto the counter. “We’re here about this.” She slid the paper forward.
The woman looked at the paper. The clicking of her fingernails stopped.
“Where did you find this?” she asked.
“It just sort of … appeared,” Sophie said.
“And what about you three? Did you also receive these notes?”
I nodded and pulled the slip of paper out of my pocket. The dark-haired girl did the same. Milton hesitated. Then he set his jaw and stepped forward to lay his invitation down.
With the four slips in her hand, the woman glided out from behind the counter. A wave of perfume swept past as she crossed the room. When she reached the front door, she pressed a button on the wall. The steel grate began lowering again, blocking any view from outside.
When she turned back around, I felt a jolt of shock run through me. All of a sudden, there was something very different about her.
Her shoulder-length bleached hair had somehow shortened and become a deep auburn color. But that wasn’t the only thing that had changed. Her orange tan and chapped lips were gone, replaced by pale, freckled features and bright green eyes.
She looked like a totally different person.
“My name’s Brandy,” she said, and even her voice had changed. “Sorry to Shift so suddenly. We have to keep up appearances here. That’s how I ended up with the beef jerky complexion. Come along. Gavin’s waiting for you.”
I was having trouble following everything. Did she really just transform into another person? And who was Gavin?
Brandy led us across the salon until we were standing in front of the tanning bed. “This will transport you to headquarters.”
“Hold on a second,” Milton said. “We’re supposed to go to headquarter
s in … a tanning bed?”
“Of course,” Brandy said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. She lifted the top of the tanning bed. “Now … only one person can fit inside at a time. Who’s first?”
With her ability to look like anyone she wants, Brandy is a master of disguise. But when she mysteriously goes missing, Joshua is left wondering whether she ever revealed her true self.
“I’ll go,” Sophie said.
As she stepped forward, I gave her a surprised look.
“What?” She shrugged, smiling. “I’ve never taken a ride in a tanning bed before.”
Sophie climbed inside and lay flat on her back. I caught one last glimpse of her face before Brandy lowered the top. Pressing a button on the side of the tanning bed caused a faint buzz to grow louder and louder until it filled the room.
I flinched as a panel of the wall opened up, revealing a tunnel. All at once, the tanning bed shot forward, vanishing into the tunnel with a whoosh. The sound grew fainter until I couldn’t hear anything at all.
“Our headquarters is located a half mile beneath our feet,” Brandy explained. “It takes the pod about a minute to get there.”
Pod? She must’ve meant the tanning bed. Before long, I could hear it again from somewhere deep in the tunnel—only this time the sound was growing louder. The pod must’ve been approaching. A moment later, the tanning bed shot back through the hole in the wall and came to a stop where it had been before.
When Brandy lifted the top, the bed was empty. Sophie was gone.
Milton was the next volunteer. Brandy helped him into the tanning bed, then lowered the top. I could hear his muffled voice from inside.
“Hey, shouldn’t there be a seat belt in here? And where do the air bags come out in case of—WAAAaaaaahhhhh!”
Milton’s scream vanished into the tunnel, along with the tanning bed.
While we waited, I turned to the stranger from the bus. She had a birthmark below her right eye that was shaped exactly like a star.
