The Rise of Renegade X

by Chelsea M. Campbell

  He sighs and flips through the catalog. “I know plenty of heroes hide what they are, and I don’t agree with it. I’m not talking about secret identities. Hiding from your enemies can be important. But just because my neighbors know Gordon Tines is a superhero doesn’t mean they know I’m the Crimson Flash. You see?”

  He’s lost me. I shake my head.

  “Golden City can be a dangerous town, and knowing there are heroes around makes people feel safe. It’s not right to hide that.”

  I drum my fingers on the edge of the couch. “I’m not a hero, and even if I was, I wouldn’t drop everything to save anyone. So for me, showing off an H would be false advertisement. And you know what else?” I shift my position, so I’m half facing him. I wave my hand at the catalog. “I hate to break this to you, but anyone can look like they have an H, for a price. And even if someone has an H legitimately, because their mom and dad had Hs and all their parents before them, it doesn’t necessarily make them a good person. Whatever that is. So if people on the street are going to be stupid enough to trust anyone showing off their H, that’s their problem, not mine.”

  Gordon scratches his chin. “You’re right. Having an H doesn’t make you a hero. But I think having an H obligates someone to become one. Do you understand, son?”

  One side of my face twitches when he calls me that. “That’s a nice theory, but that’s not reality. Just because someone inherits an H on their thumb doesn’t mean they’re naturally ‘good.’ I saw this news story once about this hero guy. The Miracle Worker. He could heal people with his hands. He healed thousands of people and saved hundreds of lives over the years, and on top of that spent most of his free time volunteering at children’s hospitals and libraries. Then he almost went to jail for beating his wife. Turns out he was healing her after each bout so no one would know. He would have gone to prison for it, too, if everyone didn’t have such a hard time believing he was a bad guy, despite the evidence against him. There were pictures and the wife testified, and I think one of the neighbors did, too. That’s the real difference between having an H or a V. A V would have gotten him time in prison, no matter how many hours he spent volunteering. And a V is going to get me into Vilmore and means I won’t have to be ashamed to have bare hands in public. That’s all—the rest is up to me.”

  Amelia comes out of the kitchen, holding a bag of microwave popcorn. She stares at us and picks the popcorn pieces out of the bag, one by one, and drops them in her mouth.

  Gordon has a look of horror on his face, and not because his daughter is clogging her arteries with fake movie-theater-flavored butter. “Is that what you think superheroes are like?”

  I shrug. “I’m just saying, nobody’s good or bad all of the time. You’ve got a show for little kids, where you teach them right from wrong and how to be safe on the beach and stuff. But on the episode about riding the subway? Yeah, you left out a few things. Like what not to do with supervillains in the bathroom.” I wink at him and nudge him with my elbow.

  Amelia frowns, and then her eyes go wide. She coughs and nearly chokes on a piece of popcorn, like it hadn’t occurred to her yet that me being Gordon’s kid means he did it with someone who isn’t Helen. “Oh, my God,” she says. “I have to tell Tiffany.”

  “Amelia, this is a private family matter!” Gordon calls after her as she runs up the wobbly attic stairs. “I’d like to keep it that way!”

  “Sure, Dad. No problem.” She crosses her fingers. “I promise I won’t tell her it was with a supervillain.”

  Gordon slides a hand over his forehead. He looks up at the attic, then pulls his attention back to me. Apparently I’m more important than keeping Amelia from gossiping with her friends about things that aren’t any of her business.

  “My point,” I say, getting back to our conversation, “is that even you mess up sometimes. Nobody’s perfect. Nobody’s born good or bad, it’s just … something you pick up as you go along.”

  “And you’ve picked up villainy.”

  “Right. Now you’re getting it. I—”

  Amelia interrupts me, running back down the stairs. She’s out of breath and panting when she gets to the bottom, but she still has the energy to glare at me. She’s holding something, and it takes me a second to make out the severed remains of a stuffed blue bunny. “You.” Her voice burns with pure rage and her hands are shaking. “You did this. It’s not bad enough that you had to come stay here with us and go to school with me and embarrass me in front of my friends! You have to take my stuff and destroy it, you sick freak, and then hide it in my bed for me to find!” Amelia takes a deep breath and looks to Gordon for help. “Dad, why did you have to bring him here?” She’s nearly in tears.

  Gordon doesn’t bother answering her, turning his attention to me instead. His tone is calm but accusing. “Damien, I understand if you’re having trouble adjusting, but there’s no reason to take that out on your sister.”

  “Uh … sorry to disappoint both of you, but I didn’t do it.” This is what I have to look forward to in a house full of superheroes. Every time something goes wrong, they blame the villain.

  “You’re lying!” Amelia shouts, and she’s actually crying now. “I’ve had Blue Bunnykins forever. Dad gave him to me for Easter when I was three, and you murdered him!”

  “I thought you didn’t approve of kids’ toys? And, like I said, I didn’t do it.” I clearly enunciate the word didn’t, in case she’s hard of hearing, as she seems to be. And if I had done it, I wouldn’t have hidden it in her bed, as that would involve going upstairs.

  She scoffs. “Why should I believe you?” She shakes her head before I can answer, glares at Gordon, and then stomps her way back up to the attic.

  “Damien,” Gordon says, once she’s gone, “you should apologize to your sister.”

  “Half sister, and what for? Some superhero you are if you can’t tell I’m innocent. How many other innocent parties have you put in jail just for having Vs on their thumbs? That’s kind of letterist.”

  “Whether you did it or not, she’s obviously upset, and an apology from you would help smooth things over and make this transition easier for both of you.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Maybe you should wait until tomorrow, when she’s calmed down some.”

  I ignore him and pretend I didn’t hear that little bit of idiocy. Apologizing for something I had nothing to do with? Not going to happen. I clear my throat. “As I was saying before the interruption, I like villainy, and I like things how they were before you dragged me here. I want to be accepted by other supervillains. I want to go to Vilmore. I want a supervillain girlfriend. You know what they say: supervillains have more fun.” I lean in close and stage whisper, “It’s true, isn’t it? You’ve had both—you can tell me.”

  Gordon stands up, flailing his arms in frustration. “This conversation is over.”

  “Good. I’ll still be wearing my gloves and hiding my X.” And wearing my new thumbprint, when it arrives. I should probably have it sent to Mom’s house, since the prints are custom made and take four to six weeks for delivery. I’m sure I’ll be back home before then. At this rate, it’s not going to take long to prove I’m not a hero.

  “We’ll discuss it more later, but in the meantime, I want you to think about something. Other people’s actions might not determine what letter they get, but yours will. You’ve got options. You could be accepted by either heroes or villains, depending on the choices you make. I just hope you make the right ones.”

  Sarah comes to school the next day wearing a gigantic pair of sci-fi-looking goggles. They’re attached to a big metal helmet she has strapped onto her head. She looks like she meant to dress up as a robot but forgot the rest of her costume. The “goggles” part looks more like the eyepieces from some high-tech pair of binoculars, and they extend a couple inches from her head.

  I hear people yelling “Freak!” in the hall before she comes into math class. When she walks through the door, peopl
e giggle, and one person erupts in a snorting fit. Marty and Jill come in behind her.

  Marty shoves Sarah out of his way. “Watch it, mental case.”

  Jill sticks her tongue out at Sarah, flicking it in a perverted gesture. Then she goes back to idly playing with her nose ring.

  “Hey, Marty,” Sarah says. She’s not fazed at all by him pushing her and calling her names. “Turn around.”

  He turns automatically, before he realizes he’s done her bidding.

  Sarah presses a button on the side of her robot helmet. A little red light flickers to life in the middle of her forehead. She looks him up and down, pausing at his crotch, a slow smile spreading over her face. “That’s what I thought.”

  Marty mutters about how they shouldn’t have to put up with people like her, and he and Jill take their places with the rest of their group.

  Sarah sits down next to me. She folds her hands together on her desk and grins.

  Mrs. Log jumps when she enters the classroom and catches sight of Sarah’s headgear. “Oh, my,” she says, clamping a hand over her chest. “That’s quite the …” She trails off and hurries to the front of the room, probably wondering, like everyone else here except me, what neuron stopped firing in Sarah’s brain to make her act like a nut job. Me, I don’t care if Sarah’s crazy. I like her better that way. It’s more interesting.

  Mrs. Log asks us to pass our papers to the front, whatever that means. Sarah gets a piece of notebook paper out of her bag, with math scribbles all over it, and hands it to the person in front of her. She has to get up to do it, since there’s a barrier of at least one empty desk between us and the rest of the class in every direction.

  I yawn and lay my head against my arm. Another sleepless night on Alex’s hardwood floor, with Jessica crying for hours in the other room and Helen and Gordon taking turns trying to quiet her down. I would say Jessica is no longer my favorite, except that Alex also snores. And his arm has a tendency to fall off the bed and hit me in the face while he’s sleeping. And Amelia? She’s not even in the running.

  I intend to close my eyes for just a second, but I must doze off, because when I open them again, everyone else has a graphing calculator on their desk and Mrs. Log is talking about how to use the tangent button. Last I knew, she was reviewing how to solve for x when there was more than one variable in the equation.

  I blink, thinking about going back to sleep, when I notice Sarah staring at me through her giant headgear contraption, the little red light blinking on her forehead. She doesn’t have her notebook out this time.

  “What are you doing?” I mutter, putting my head back down.

  “Looking through your clothes.” One side of her mouth twitches into a grin as she continues to have her visual way with me.

  I sit up and hold my hand out to her, tapping my finger to my palm and glancing up at the clock. “This isn’t a free show. How long have you been watching? Ten minutes? That’s going to cost, oh, about …” I tally up what I think that’s worth, then give her a nice discount. “Twenty bucks.” It’s a steal.

  Sarah laughs, but then her expression melts into one of pure shock, and her eyes focus on my hand and don’t look away.

  “Keep looking,” I say. “The meter’s only going up.”

  Sarah suddenly pulls the contraption off her head and sets it on her desk. She pushes the little button on the side and the light fades out. Her cheeks go pink, and she can’t look at me.

  Now she gets modest?

  “Don’t you want to know what this is?” Sarah asks, her head bent forward in shame, her eyes sliding toward me, then flicking back to front and center.

  “X-ray goggles. Glasses. Whatever. A little clunky on the aesthetics, but otherwise—”

  “Damien!” Mrs. Log whaps a ruler against the metal edge of the whiteboard. “Could you please not talk in class? Now, where were we?”

  Not talk in class? What kind of nonsense is that? What the hell else are we supposed to do?

  “Otherwise what?” Sarah asks after a minute of silence to appease Mrs. Log, keeping her voice low. She seems eager for my opinion all of a sudden.

  I shrug. “Decent.”

  She doesn’t have her glasses on, on account of having just been wearing the goggles, but even without their magnification, I can see how much her eyes light up. “Decent.” She repeats the word to herself, as if it was a precious gift I’d just handed her and told her never to let anything happen to.

  “As for the twenty bucks,” I say, getting back to business, “since it was your first offense, how about you buy me lunch and we call it even?”

  “Wow.” I drag my feet down the aisles at Helen’s antique shop downtown, unable to stop gaping at her collection. Not everything here is actually an antique, but it’s all superhero and supervillain related.

  A proud smile creeps across Gordon’s face as he gives me the tour. Which you’d think wouldn’t take very long, since the shop isn’t that big, except that I have to stop at every item and gawk for five minutes; I can’t believe the stuff she’s got.

  I point to a recliner in the corner. It’s made of purple leather and has a chunk of one of the arm’s missing. The price tag on it is, like everything here, disgustingly more than I could ever afford. “That’s Professor Doomsworth’s chair! He wouldn’t leave it for a month before he died. He was a little, you know …” I spin my finger next to my head, indicating he was crazy. “Oh, and that’s the spot where Gregorio the Necromanticore blasted Doomsworth’s hand off, and that’s—”

  “Yes, Damien,” Gordon says, setting a hand on my shoulder and steering me on to the next one. “We know.”

  I only get excited about the supervillain stuff and don’t really know anything about the hero artifacts, but Gordon seems to enjoy showing off the store to me anyway. We pass half a broken magician’s wand, the black kind with the white tip, and I’m like, “Is that … is that—”

  “Part of it,” Gordon says. “Come on. The best is in the back.”

  “And that’s the shooter the Marbler choked on. Mom says she was at the game when it happened, but she was a little kid at the time.”

  Gordon winces when I mention Mom and picks up the pace, leading me around the L shape of the store and into the back section.

  I drool at the sight of even more cool stuff. “And over there, that’s—”

  “Damien.” Gordon taps me on the shoulder to get my attention and points to a ring under a glass case.

  I recognize it immediately and press my hands and face against the glass, unable to resist getting as close as possible. Alarms blare and red lights flare overhead as soon as I do. A camera flashes, practically blinding me.

  “Get back!” Gordon shouts. He jerks me away from it just as Helen hurries over to us. I’d say she ran, but it’s not what I would call running, what with her limp and all.

  I’m still seeing spots from the flash, but I notice a little panel open up beneath the case, revealing a nozzle that sprays out some weird mist. Gordon pulls me back farther and warns me not to breathe it in. He sounds ashamed when he says, “It’s, um, a supervillain deterrent. Puts them to sleep.” He scratches the side of his head. “Since you’re half villain, you might be susceptible.”

  Helen pushes a series of buttons on a keypad on the wall. The little panel closes, and the alarm stops blaring. “Sorry about that,” she says, but I can tell she’s proud her security system would have stopped me.

  “That’s the ring,” I say, forgetting to cover my mouth and nose against the mist. It’s a gold ring with a ruby in the middle. It has BB+CM engraved on it. Bart the Blacksmith and his wife, Cissy Miles. I know all about it, and not just because the man was a legend but because he was Kat’s grandfather. He had the power to imbue the metals he forged with special abilities. He was notorious for making chains that could bind superheroes’—or supervillains’—powers, for making innocent-looking jewelry that could warp your mind or make you do his bidding, and for forging bullets tha
t could take down anyone, no matter what their special ability. They say that when his wife died, he took the ring he’d originally made for her, melted it down, and forged this. It’s supposed to keep the wearer free from heartache. He never took it off, not for anything, until the day he died. Nobody knows whether it worked or not because when he bit the big one twenty years ago, the ring was never found. And now here it is.

  It’s the only item in the store without a price tag, though I don’t know how you could put a price on it—it’s too valuable.

  Helen watches me taking it in, her expression shifting from pride to melancholy. I yawn, suddenly tired and feeling the effects of the antivillain mist kick in, and wobble a little on my feet. I’m about to ask if the ring really works when she says, “I earned that ring.” The corners of her mouth almost twitch into a smile, then sag back down. “With my superspeed, I was the fastest, the only one who could get out of there in time to”—she licks her lips, her eyes shining—“to save everyone.”

  I shift my weight uncomfortably, trying to keep my eyes open and wondering about Helen’s limp and if she got it in the fight. “Is that how you, um …?” I glance down at her feet, then away again.

  “Got this limp?” She shoots me a half grin, but she still looks really worn out. “By the time we got the go-ahead from Headquarters, Bart knew we were coming. He was waiting for us when we raided his workshop. He was going to blow it all up and take us and him with it, rather than get captured. One of us had to stay inside to try and stop him, to at least stall him, while the rest of the crew got out. I was the fastest. I thought I could get away in time. I thought—” She chokes up a little and clears her throat. “I’m lucky to be alive. None of us thought about the consequences of Bart’s workshop blowing up. We didn’t think about the effect the explosives would have on some of his creations. But even if we had … You know he crafted jewelry that inhibited a person’s power? Made it so they couldn’t use it at all?”