“Were,” Sam corrected. “We were. A long time ago. And even then, we didn’t really do any of the dirty work.”
“Hell, I was a glorified human shield,” said Anna. “I’ve still got the scar where the Gunslinging Gal shot me that time.”
“I thought she shot Calcu-Lass?” said Sam.
Anna shrugged. “I think she shot a lot of people. It was kind of her whole M.O.”
“Actually, what happened to Calcu-Lass?” Sam asked, turning to Chuck. “Or the other guy. What was his name? The fire one.”
“Jim Flammable,” said Chuck. He shrugged. “We don’t know. We lost track of them both.”
“Shame. That whole ‘master of fire’ thing could’ve come in handy with your current predicament,” said Anna.
“Meh. Not really. He could generate fire, but his skin wasn’t actually fireproof. Every time he used his powers he almost burned his own hands off.”
Sam and Anna both blinked in unison.
“Jesus,” Sam muttered.
“It was a last resort kind of thing,” Chuck explained.
“Sounds like it,” Anna agreed.
They fell silent for a moment. Sam thought back twenty years. Jim Flammable had seemed like a nice kid. A little shy and reserved, but then he’d been a couple of years younger than the others, and rumor was that he’d come from a pretty rough background. He’d worn heavy leather gloves, which Sam had thought at the time was just part of his costume, but now realized must have been hiding his burned and blackened hands.
“Poor guy,” he said, then he gave himself a shake as if chasing the image away. “But that’s exactly my point. We were never heroes. Some of us didn’t even have powers,” he added, shooting Randy the briefest of pointed looks.
“That better not have been aimed at me,” Randy spat. “I have powers. I have all the powers and abilities of the noble butterfly.”
“What, like flying?” asked Anna, crossing her arms and slinking her weight onto one hip.
“Except flying, obviously,” Randy hissed. “All their abilities except flying.”
“Or—”
“Or being small, yes, OK. All their powers except flying or being small.” He looked Anna up and down. “Anyway, what about you, Allergy Girl? What was so great about you?”
Anna shrugged. “Nothing. You’re right. There was, and there still is absolutely nothing great about me. Hence why I’m not interested in…” She waved her hands vaguely around the room. “Whatever all this is.”
“Same here,” Sam agreed. “I can’t get involved. Not again.”
“We need you,” Chuck told them. “Everyone needs you.”
“Why us?” Sam cried. “What can we do? He talks to butterflies, she breaks people out in spots, and I…” His brief explosion of anger faltered, becoming a damp squib. “I can’t do anything.”
Chuck shook his head and stepped in closer. Sam tried to retreat, but the bigger man’s hands caught him by the upper arms and held him firmly in place. Sam got the impression those hands could crush his bones to dust, and wondered if Chuck packed some superpowers of his own.
“Listen to me, Sam. That’s not true, we both know it.”
“It is true,” Sam insisted. “Honestly. I can’t help, even if I wanted to.”
Chuck’s voice became low and intense, almost like a conspiratorial whisper. For a moment, Sam forgot the other two were even in the room.
“I said earlier that whoever that space bastard who killed the Platoon was, its readings suggested it’s more powerful than almost anything we’ve ever encountered. Keyword ‘almost.’ There’s someone even more powerful, Sam.”
“Doc Mighty,” Sam guessed, but Chuck dismissed the suggestion with a shake of his head.
“You, Sam. It’s you.”
Sam snorted. “Me?”
Randy snorted even more loudly. “Him? Sure you don’t mean me?”
“He definitely doesn’t mean you,” said Anna.
“He might mean me,” Randy countered. “Chuck, do you mean me?”
“You talk to butterflies, Randy. Clearly, I don’t mean you,” Chuck said, without looking at him.
Anna sized Sam up, looking for some clue that would either back-up or contradict what Chuck was saying. She remembered Kid Random from back in the nineties. They’d fought side by side against Thrumduk the World Slayer, and he hadn’t demonstrated any great power then. He had seemed much more able, willing, and generally gung-ho than this older version, but then it was hard not to get swept away by the thrill of it all at the time. She was also well aware of how much she herself had changed since her teenage years, and the lengths she’d gone to leave those days behind.
He’d been fun to hang out with. They’d even flirted a little, although her multitude of spots, rashes, and other skin complaints had probably thwarted any chance of actual romance. Besides, the Platoon actively discouraged any inter-team relationships, even among the thirteen-year-olds.
Especially among the thirteen-year-olds, in fact. Which was why the team’s kindly old butler, Albert, had been quietly retired, Anna seemed to recall.
Did Sam have a certain something about him back in the day? Yeah. She had to admit that he had. But superpowers greater than those of Doc Mighty himself? No, she was pretty sure she’d have noticed.
“No,” said Sam. “No, there’s been a mistake. I mean…” He gestured down at himself, like this would somehow demonstrate just how wrong Chuck was. “Look at me. I’m not powerful.”
“You turned a Glock 17 into butter without even thinking about it,” Chuck pointed out. “If that isn’t power, I don’t know what is.”
“He… He had a gun to my son’s head,” said Sam, wringing his hands together. “That wasn’t… I didn’t mean to…”
Sam straightened suddenly and fixed Chuck with the sternest glare he could muster up. “I’m sorry. You’ve wasted your time. I’d like to leave now.”
Anna shrugged. “Well, if he’s our big hitter and he’s leaving, I’m out of here, too,” she said. “So, if you have, like, a coat or some gloves or whatever, and can point us in the right direction, we’ll be on our way.”
Chuck looked between them for several seconds. The intensity of his blue-eyed glare almost made Sam chuckle, but the presence of Anna behind him helped him stand his ground.
“Fine.”
Sam leaned back a little in surprise. “Fine? So, what? We can go?”
“You’re not prisoners,” Chuck said. “You heard me out. I can’t force you to do the right thing.”
Sam winced a little at that.
“Mreow,” said Anna, curving her fingers into cat-like claws. “Trying to guilt trip us into a suicide mission. Smooth.”
“If you want to leave, you can leave,” said Chuck.
“Like the filthy cowards you are!” said Randy. He’d pulled his goggles back down over his eyes and spat out the words in his best Batman-like growl.
“Yeah. Good to see you, too, Randy,” Sam said. “Good luck with…” He looked Randy up and down, taking in the flying hat and goggles, scruffy t-shirt, and ill-fitting cape. “…everything.”
Chuck stepped aside and pushed down the bar of the door. Sam wrapped his arms around himself, bracing against a blast of cold air that didn’t come.
Instead of the Arctic wilderness, the door opened onto a basketball court.
“What the hell is this?” asked Sam.
“It’s the way out.”
“I thought we were somewhere up north?”
“We were,” Chuck confirmed. “Now we’re not. You leaving, or what?”
Sam leaned through the doorway and examined the room beyond. A few racks of tall metal shelves had been positioned around the court, each one laden with what looked like random pieces of junk.
A baseball bat lay beside two plastic hubcap covers. Two fire extinguishers stood guard either side of a stack of cooking pots and a child’s kite.
And so it went on. The shelves groaned u
nder the weight of diving equipment, broken toys, musical instruments, and dozens of other items too diverse to accurately catalog. There was no apparent logic to any of it, and Sam’s first instinct was to give the shelves a good tidy, possibly involving some light alphabetization.
“Where the hell are we now?” Anna asked. “And what’s with the junk?”
“The way out’s that way,” said Chuck, ushering Sam and Anna through the door.
“That’s it?” said Sam. “We can just go? Just like that?”
“Just like that,” said Chuck. He began pulling the door closed behind them, then paused with it half open. “Oh, but one thing. Those guys are going to try to stop you.”
“What? What guys?” Sam spluttered, but then he saw them. They stepped out from behind one of the shelving units at the far end of the court, all snarls and skinheads and matching orange jumpsuits.
“Who are these clowns?” Anna asked.
Chuck shrugged. “Just some assorted henchmen types. Thugs for hire. Nothing you guys can’t handle,” he said. “You want out? You go through them.”
Sam gawped at him in horror. “No! That’s not… You can’t do that!”
“I can, and I am,” Chuck told him.
“Stand aside, good citizen! Butterfly King is totally getting in on this!” Randy announced, sidling past Chuck and onto the basketball court. He pointed dramatically in the direction of the henchmen. “Evildoers, prepare to meet your fate!”
“We won’t fight them,” Sam told Chuck, ignoring Randy completely. “We just… We won’t fight them.”
“Fair enough. That’s completely your choice,” Chuck replied. “But FYI, these people will kill you. Also, bonus fun fact, one of them’s a necrophiliac. I’ll let you figure out which one. But I’ll give you a hint—it’s the one with ‘Imma fuck your dead body,’ tattooed on his face.”
Chuck winked and smiled at Sam. “See you around, kid,” he said.
And with that, he closed the door.
Chapter Seven
Randy stepped in front of Sam and Anna, clutching his fists down near his hips and thrusting out his chest.
“Sidekicks!” he barked, his voice echoing around the basketball court “Let’s kick some side!”
Anna shot him a sideways look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I just thought it was a thing we could say,” Randy explained. “You know, like ‘Avengers Assemble!’ or ‘Platoon Commune!’”
“What’s ‘Platoon Commune’?” Anna asked. “The Justice Platoon never said that.”
“Well, no, but they totally should have,” Randy said.
Anna rolled her eyes. “God. OK, let’s just get this over with.”
Sam looked along the court to where the henchmen were gathered. They had spread out a little to search the closest shelves. He was a little concerned to note that one had picked up what looked to be a meat cleaver, and was now swishing it around in the air, getting a feel for it.
“We’re not actually going to fight those guys!” Sam hissed.
“I mean, I don’t want to,” said Anna. “But I also don’t want to get corpse-raped, so I’m kind of…” She made a weighing motion with her hands. “You know?”
Sam shook his head. “We’re not in High School here. I’m sure we can just talk to them. They probably don’t want to do this anymore than we do,” he said. Raising a hand, he hailed the henchmen. “Hello there!”
There was a roar of gunfire and the contents of the shelf closest to Sam disintegrated. Sam and Anna threw themselves to the ground, covering their heads with their hands as the brrrrrrrp of machine-gun fire continued to reverberate around the hall. Randy, meanwhile, cartwheeled clumsily toward another of the shelves, lost his balance, and crashed onto the polished wooden floor.
“They’ve got guns!” Sam screeched. “How come they have guns? Why don’t we have guns?”
“Because we’re heroes, dammit!” Randy spat. He was squatting behind one of the shelving racks, his back pressed up against it. “Heroes don’t use guns!”
“What about Crime Killer?” Anna yelped. “He has hundreds of guns!”
“Or Blastatron the Living Gun?” Sam added. “He literally is a gun!”
“OK, but technically, those guys are more like anti-heroes,” Randy explained. “So, they don’t really count.”
The gunfire stopped, leaving only a fading echo to bounce around the court. Sam and Anna slowly raised their heads just as something around the size of a grapefruit rolled to a stop between them. It ticked faintly.
“Hey, they’ve got grenades, too,” Randy pointed out.
“Jesus Christ!” Sam yelped. He jumped up and tried to kick the grenade back the way it had come, but it sliced sideways off his foot and clonked the still prostrate Anna on the forehead.
“Ow! Shit! Watch what you’re doing!” she spat, clutching where the grenade had hit her just above her right eye.
Sam pointed frantically to the explosive. “Grenade!” was all he could think to shout. “There’s a grenade!”
Anna threw out an arm, sweeping the explosive across the floor. It skittered back down the court and wedged under a shelf roughly halfway between the Sidekicks and the Henchmen.
At both ends of the hall, everyone who wasn’t already ducking ducked.
Nothing happened.
“A dud. Of course it is!” said Randy, stepping out of cover. “These idiots wouldn’t know a real hand grenade if they—”
The grenade exploded, filling the air with smoke and fire and bits of flying shelf. Sam shoulder-barged Randy and they both clattered to the ground just as chunks of debris came whistling through the air above them.
“I totally would’ve dodged that on my own,” Randy insisted, but all Sam could hear was a high-pitched ringing in his ears, and a tiny voice in his head telling him that he was almost certainly about to die.
The whole middle section of the room was filled with thick black smoke, from the polished floor up to the high ceiling. Through the black cloud, Sam could hear the henchmen coughing and spluttering.
“We should hit them before they pull themselves together,” Anna suggested.
Sam’s voice came as a high-pitched squeak. “You’re not still planning to fight them? They’ve got a gun!”
“Kind of struggling to see how we’ve got a lot of choice,” said Anna. She fished in a pocket of her dress, retrieved a grubby elastic band, and scooped her unruly hair back into a ponytail. “Did anyone see how many of them there were?” she asked. “Because I’m still a little drunk, and I may well be seeing double.”
“I made six,” Randy told her.
Anna winced. “Shit. Not seeing double. That’s disappointing. So, two each.”
“No, not two each!” Sam protested. “Not anything each. I’m not a superhero, I’m a data entry clerk. I don’t fight crime, I type numbers into boxes. That’s it. That’s my whole skillset. I can’t get involved in this.” He crossed his arms for emphasis. “I won’t!”
Anna made no effort to hide her disappointment. “Huh,” she said, then she shrugged. “Fine. Whatever. Three each, then.”
“I prefer those odds, actually,” growled Randy. “In fact, you take one and I’ll take the other five.”
“Are you nuts?” Sam snapped. “This isn’t like the comics, Randy. You can’t take on five guys on your own.”
Randy smirked behind his scruffy beard. “Who says I’ll be on my own?” he asked, then he whipped his hands around in a series of complex, yet ultimately quite clumsy-looking gestures. With that out of the way, he pressed the first two fingers of his right hand to his temple and bellowed: “Come to me, my butterfly brethren!”
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then, for a longer moment, nothing continued to happen.
“Give it a minute,” Randy muttered, still holding the pose.
“We don’t have a minute!” Sam hissed. “They could start shooting again any second.”
Randy snorted. “Oh, I don’t think so. See, I counted how many bullets they fired, and by my calculations, those scumbags are all out of—”
BRRRRRRRRAP!
Flashes of machine-gun fire illuminated the cloud of smoke, as lumps of hot lead came screaming along the court. Sam and Anna both ducked again, but the shots were too high and sailed harmlessly above their heads before peppering the plaster of the wall behind them.
The roaring of gunfire became a definitive click.
“My bad. My bad. Completely miscounted,” admitted Randy. He cocked his head, listening. “Now they’re out. I guarantee it. Unless they’ve got more bullets, obviously. Or another gun.”
“Let’s not find out,” said Anna, flexing her fingers and taking a series of deep breaths. “I’m ending this.” She cricked her neck a couple of times. “Come on, Anna. You’ve still got it. You can still do this.”
She brought her hands close to her chest, then pushed them forward, fingers splayed outward. “Anaphylactic Shockwave,” she said, faltering a little as she uttered the words.
Sam looked toward the smoke, where they could just make out a few hints of orange jumpsuits. Anna’s display didn’t seem to have achieved much of anything.
“Wait. I think I did it wrong,” she said.
“It’s fine. I got this,” Randy hissed through gritted teeth. He had the first two fingers of both hands pressed against his temples now, and was going vaguely purple around the cheeks through sheer force of concentration. “Come to me. Come… to… your king!”
“No, I know what I did wrong. I’ve got it this time,” said Anna, spreading her feet further apart and adopting something resembling a fighting stance.
Sam, meanwhile, shifted his weight from foot to foot, convinced that fiery hot lumps of lead were going to tear through them all at any moment. The smoke was beginning to clear, and so the henchmen would soon have much easier targets to aim for.
“Anaphylactic Shockwave!” Anna cried, putting some enthusiasm into it this time.
The forward thrust of her arms coincided with the arrival of a dozen or so butterflies, apparently from nowhere. They fluttered around her head, startling her and throwing her aim off. Something rippled through the air from her hands. Sam clutched at his throat, wheezed loudly, then fell over.
The Sidekicks Initiative Page 6
