Not Your Villain

by C. B. Lee

  “Good, good,” Kingston says, clapping a meaty hand on Bells’ shoulder. “These things may seem small to you now, son, but it’s all part of the process. We’ll make a hero of you yet.”

  * * *

  “Look, my powers are really awesome, but there’s no way I can control water,” Bells says to Liam, one of the League lab techs on the assignment. He’s just read the mission parameters again and did a double-take at the ‘script.’ Bells eyes the large hose attached to the pump leading directly from the ocean. “Are you sure this is gonna work?”

  “Don’t worry. The special effects crew will handle it,” Liam says, heavy hose in hand.

  Bells nods, gesturing at the ocean in Jetstream’s signature move. It’s disorienting, being in Jetstream’s body. They’ve been filming all morning, hoping to catch the attention of Aerodraft, and Bells keeps catching glimpses of himself as Jetstream reflected in the camera lens. She’s a tall woman with broad shoulders and muscular forearms, and it’s intimidating, being asked to take on her form, but this is the most interesting assignment Bells has had from the League. He’s determined to prove he can do it. It was uncomfortable yesterday when he tried it out for the first time, but he reminded himself that it’s Jetstream’s body, not his. Combat training will involve a lot of shifting into other people. It’s comforting that the League sees that he can use his powers in situations more complicated that rescuing cats.

  He holds his arms up again, and a hidden Liam shoots water out of the hose in powerful torrents.

  “Jetstream! You’ve broken out of Corrections!” Aerodraft says, finally arriving on the scene. They run toward him and brandish their signature move, blasting a rush of air at him.

  Bells ducks the attack and moves forward. The film crew runs to keep up, but he’s lost track of Liam.

  “I can’t believe you,” Aerodraft says, throwing a punch.

  Bells dodges the punch and aims a swift kick at them, and is pleased at himself for keeping up. Aerodraft tries the blasts again, and Bells soon runs out of steam. He can feel his strength flicker. He’s been shifted into Jetstream all morning, and it takes a lot out of him to maintain the woman’s commanding presence.

  “You know you’re no match for me; you’re nearly tapped out already. Why were you blasting water at the ocean? Trying to disrupt the tidal power stations? You know we talked about this,” Aerodraft says.

  Bells raises his eyebrows, but that’s probably not visible through the mask. Does Aerodraft not know that he’s not actually Jetstream?

  He manages to keep the fight up for another few minutes and then, as instructed, falls back. Aerodraft blasts another gust of air at him, and Bells dodges it, but pretends to take it in the stomach. He falls to the ground. “You… got me…” he says, like a dying cowboy in an old holovid.

  “Hah!” Aerodraft strikes a pose. “I just have to call the Authorities and the Associated League… oh, they’re here!” they say, as the uniformed officials step forward. “Bring out the tantalum cuffs!”

  Bells freezes. Since when was this part of the act? If they put tantalum on him, he’ll go back to being Bells, and not only will the assignment tank, but his secret identity will be revealed. He doubles up, clutching his knees. “I’ll go quietly,” he says to Aerodraft. “I’m all tapped out; you don’t need those…”

  One of the officials is actually Liam, who’s changed into a black tactical uniform with AUTHORITY emblazoned on the back.

  “We’ll handle this,” Liam says. “Thank you for your hard work on apprehending this dangerous criminal.” Liam jerks his head at the film crew, who rush to Aerodraft’s side and clamor for an interview.

  The officials lead a relieved Bells away, and he gets into their car and shifts into Barry.

  Harris is already reviewing the footage. “This fight isn’t quite ten minutes,” he says, frowning.

  “Hey, you try fighting Aerodraft. Wait, maybe you can’t, because I’m the only one who can look like Jetstream—unless you have another shapeshifter I don’t know about.” Bells clutches his heart, pretending to be hurt. “Harris! I thought we had something special.”

  Harris doesn’t respond to the joke, just hands him a datachip with his hovertrain ticket back to Vegas and also his next assignment.

  Bells is about to take off his mask when an incoming call flashes across the screen. He makes a quick gesture to accept.

  “Fantastic job, son,” Kingston says.

  “Oh, thanks,” Bells says. “Great training exercise, and a lot of fun too.”

  “Is that the Central President?” Harris asks, eyes widening beside him. “Hello… sir— ”

  “Keep this up, and there’s going to be a lot more work coming your way.” Kingston nods at him. “The League is proud to have you as an asset.”

  True to Kingston’s word, Bells’ missions get much more interesting. There are fewer and fewer staged cat “rescues” and more and more morale missions and combat trainings. Bells gets better at impersonating villains, gets into the rhythm of his assignments with the League. The travel gets easier. Bells only has to pop into the Vegas center once a week for tune-ups on the suit and the motorcycle with Rebecca, and it’s fun getting to the different drop points in Andover to find what he needs for each assignment. In addition to his suit, there are instructions on where to be, whom to look like, and what to expect. The higher stakes assignments are always encrypted on paper.

  Between homework for his AP classes, and writing articles and doing layout for the yearbook holo, and going on assignments, Bells barely has time for sleep. He’s managing by staying up late or waking up early to squeeze in time for homework.

  The assignments are boring, but they’re going to ask him to do actual hero work soon, he’s sure of it. Harris keeps mentioning a recon mission. Kingston sent Bells a personal message telling him, if he played his cards right, Bells could be the next Captain Orion.

  At lunch, Emma brings up Jess’ possible internship, and Bells has no idea what they’re talking about. He’s missed so much. Apparently, she has an interview. Bells makes a note to ask Jess about how it goes, but he’s working the entire afternoon and the dinner shifts at the family restaurant.

  Jess comes into the restaurant and tells him she got the job with Monroe Industries and starts on Monday afternoon, which coincidentally works with Bells’ schedule for independent hero work. Great, he can follow Jess to her new job and make sure she gets there safely.

  The next afternoon Bells rides downtown to Monroe Industries, parks his motorcycle, and tries to think of an eye-catching person that Jess would find trustworthy. A pretty woman, he decides, maybe one that looks a bit like her crush, Abby, but isn’t Abby.

  Maybe the disguise is a little too over-the-top, but Jess is so nervous about her interview that she doesn’t seem to notice, and Bells walks her to the building and then disappears, shifting to a nondescript businessman to watch her go inside.

  It goes on his reports as a general good deed. It’s been slow ever since the Mischiefs disappeared. Bells is running out of people to help cross the street. And he’s not keen on finding more cats to rescue.

  Bells keeps an eye on Jess during her afternoon walks from the bus to her work, but soon Abby starts driving her. He’s busy, but Jess and Emma are too: Emma with volleyball practice and Jess with her new job keeping her from afterschool activities.

  Bells hasn’t had much time to hang out with his friends, either. He’s been looking forward to marathoning The Gentleman Detective with them, especially since it’s the first time in weeks he doesn’t have any hero work scheduled on the same day. But Harris sticks him with a last minute assignment that keeps him busy the entire afternoon. It involves taking the hovertrain all the way to Middleton and pretending to be Mr. Ooze, who doesn’t fight so much as just sit in muddy puddles and make terrible puns about soil at his arch-nemesis.

&nb
sp; That evening, every muscle in Bells’ body is screaming at him to stop moving; he hasn’t been this tired since that week during training when Sasha and Tanya challenged him to a pushup contest every morning. He’s had an awful day, an exhausting day, and to top it all off, Emma is mad at him.

  He thought showing up late to her house would be fine, but she snapped at him and Bells snapped back and Jess just stood there looking sadly at both of them and he couldn’t stay there anymore.

  Emma’s voice echoes through his mind, the sharp way she said, “I just—I feel like you don’t trust us anymore.” She just looked so hurt, the way she looked down at her feet and then behind Bells, as if she wanted to look anywhere to avoid meeting his eyes.

  The words cut like stinging barbs. In the moment, in all his frustration and bone-aching tiredness, he snapped at her and then stormed off, but the moment is over, and he’s got nothing but guilt now.

  His DED died during his afternoon stint making puns in the mud; now, fully charged, it’s blinking with the notifications he missed all afternoon.

  3 missed calls from Emma Robledo

  2 new messages from Jessica Tran

  8 new messages from Emma Robledo

  Bells opens his messages from Emma; each one makes him feel worse. The thread is filled with snippets from her day, comments about school and a cute cat that she thought would make Bells laugh, how she thinks Jess is dating Abby but doesn’t know it yet. Then there’s just one message, two hours ago, asking if Bells is going to get there soon.

  He groans. He’s never felt less like the little, hopeful happy face at the end of the message.

  * * *

  Bells can’t believe he wasn’t invited to Captain Orion’s event at the Museum of Modern Art. The tickets sold out three months ago, but he has an in now. League won’t even comp him a pass, because of: museum regulations, number of attendees, fire hazard, they can’t make an invitation out of thin air, blah, blah. Blah. Bells is more than a little miffed, because after he asked about getting a ticket, they offered to sell him a pass for a thousand credits.

  Apparently, all the cheaper tickets were sold months in advance to the Captain Orion Fan Club. The League can’t even get him an official introduction. She knows who I am. I even have a message directly from her! I’m Chameleon! We’re both heroes! In the same League!

  Since he doesn’t have hero work scheduled, Bells works at the restaurant all Friday afternoon.

  Bells doesn’t fret about missing the event until Abby bails at the last minute and Jess asks him if he wants the extra ticket. Of course he wants to go, but he can’t now because he took Sean’s shift.

  Bells wipes down the counter with more force than necessary. He could have asked Simon to take his shift, but his brother already had plans with his boyfriend in Crystal Springs. What’s the point of having siblings if they are never around when you need them?

  In the end, Jess goes by herself. The afternoon passes in an uneventful blur for Bells. He waves goodbye to his dad and the staff when his shift is over and he takes the long way home as the sun sets over the glimmering solar fields outside Andover.

  When he arrives home, the house is quiet—a bit too quiet, but that’s easily fixed with some background noise. Bells gets caught up in flicking through reruns of The Gentleman Detective, but eventually he gets to his homework. He’s finishing up his English assignment when the house security programming notifies him two people are at the door: Jess and someone else. Bells goes downstairs immediately. He opens the door and freezes.

  Jess is standing there with Abby, who is wearing a mecha-suit. It looks haphazardly made, with metal pieces in different colors, and Bells spots what looks like pieces from a stove. It should look ridiculous, but the design looks very capable, like the armor engineers wear to build new structures in the Unmaintained zones or the mecha-suit Master Mischief used to fly.

  “Hey, Bells,” Jess says, way too casually for this situation. “Um… do you have superpowers?”

  Ch. 4...

  Bells’ mouth falls open, and then he quickly shuts it and reacts on instinct. “Me? Superpowers? No, why would you ask that? I totally don’t.”

  He takes a step back, glancing at Jess for an explanation, and then back at Abby. Jess’ hair is sticking out in all directions. Windswept, Bells’ mind supplies, as if they were flying.

  “Well, that’s too bad,” Abby says, and then just levitates, right on his porch. She’s lucky the Broussard home is hidden.

  Bells is about to pull them both inside when she demonstrates even more powers, completely altering the solartech porch light. The metal and wires and circuits reassemble themselves, folding around the glass and reforming into a flower, and Bells… Bells has never seen anything like this. His brain is still trying to process the sheer power of it.

  “I’m a meta-human,” Abby says.

  No kidding.

  Abby glances at Jess and then back at Bells. “I’m thinking there are three of us here standing here. Am I right?”

  “Three?” Bells repeats.

  Jess looks at him, fidgeting. “We should talk somewhere private.”

  Bells leads them to his bedroom. Abby’s suit clanks with each step, and Bells shakes his head in disbelief. He’s in shock, but a huge part of him is excited to share his secret.

  There’s an official Heroes’ League of Heroes Guide holobook still projected over Bells’ desk: a detail he should be scrambling to put away before his friends enter the room, but today is different. Bells watches Jess’ eyes flit to the book and take in all the files Bells left open.

  What is she going to think about him being Chameleon all this time?

  Bells can feel his hair changing, and a quick glance in the mirror confirms the slight shift from green to turquoise. He hasn’t lost his concentration like this in years. It’s the shock, he tells himself. Just take a deep breath and get that control back.

  There isn’t any point in denying his powers now, and Bells doesn’t want to. He takes a deep breath, then exhales. “I’ve been altering myself ever since I learned how. It’s just a part of who I am.”

  Jess embraces him without saying anything. Relief floods through Bells; she understands. It’s as if a weight has been lifted off his chest.

  At first, talking to Jess and Abby about being Chameleon and his hero work these past few months is fun, and he gets to joke about rescuing the cats. He learns that Abby secretly designs MonRobots for her dad, Phillip Monroe, and Bells is really impressed because he loves those robots. Even learning that Jess’ parents are Smasher and Shockwave is incredibly thrilling, and discovering that Abby’s parents are the Mischiefs is totally surprising, but then the conversation takes a wild turn.

  “The League is kidnapping villains,” Abby says slowly, watching for his response. “Captain Orion kidnapped my parents.”

  “Wait, what?” Bells frowns.

  Something at the back of his mind clicks in place. Tree Frog. Plasmaman. The Mischiefs. But they just were all captured, right? That’s why they haven’t been in the news lately.

  “Captain Orion wouldn’t do that. Captain Orion does what’s best for the North American Collective,” Bells says, shaking his head.

  Jess syncs a DED to Bells’ desktop projector and files project into the air: dozens of missing people reports; the press focus on the hero-villain drama and not the overseas conflicts; the strange files on the DED itself, only on meta-humans classified as villains.

  The longer they talk, the more things fall into place: the film crews, the way the League was so adamant about Bells’ “combat missions.” The more he tries to explain it the way the League did—being more creative and developing his combat skills in battle—the more what Jess and Abby are saying makes sense.

  Okay. The battles are staged. The League and the Collective are lying to the public and there’s shady deals ha
ppening in Constavia but that doesn’t mean Captain Orion is evil.

  “Captain Orion—” Bells starts, still trying to exonerate his hero.

  “Held us captive,” Abby says.

  And then Jess shows him the scar on her neck. It’s raw and angry-looking against Jess’ brown skin; it’s a network of pink tendrils tracing down her neck and disappearing under her shirt.

  Captain Orion is evil.

  Bells clenches and unclenches his fist. Captain Orion hurt Jess when she asked her to explain the inconsistencies about the League and the missing villains, and now he wants her to pay. He shudders, thinking about the battles being faked and how the villains in the Guild were all chosen.

  And all his assignments when he pretended to be some villain for the sake of—for the sake of what, puppet theatre? They told him it was combat training and Bells… Bells believed it.

  Anger swells inside him. Every single class he’s taken at the Meta-Human Training Center, all the students, are just part of this game to the League, and the whole process—the obstacle courses, the sparring classes, the trainers watching them carefully to evaluate them—are all part of an elaborate distraction for everyone in the Collective.

  Captain Orion is evil, and the League kidnapped Abby’s parents.

  He pulls Jess into a hug. They’re going to fix this.

  “Ready to go kick some butt?” Abby asks.

  Bells has never been more ready.

  Bells is still processing it, but Jess has a plan, and directions. Actually, she has lots of directions, as it’s her power. He’s a little in awe at how cool it is, but tries to focus on the task at hand. The landscape is speeding past the Trans’ car as they drive into the desert to the facility where Orion is keeping Abby’s parents captive.