by A. J. Low
“Don’t you guys find travelling across international time zones just completely fascinating?”
Six exhausted faces looked at me and no one responded, not even Jimmy.
“No,” Watson replied.
But Moran tilted his head in an enquiring manner, which I took as a sign to continue.
“It’s like when we travelled to San Diego from Singapore! We arrived even before we departed because Singapore is 16 hours ahead of San Diego! How does that not boggle your minds?! Also, did you guys know that a time zone is the term that is used to denote where a standard time is used? And did you guys also know that there are more than 24 different time zones in the world? That is, if you take the International Date Line into consideration. The IDL, as we all know, is the imaginary line of longitude on the Earth’s surface located at about 180 degrees east or west of the Greenwich Meridian. It’s not a straight imaginary line though, because if it were, it would divide some countries in two. And—”
“Sam, dear, this is really interesting, but do you think this can wait until we’ve had some sleep?” Mom asked, patting me on the shoulder and yawning at the same time.
I nodded, already making a note to remind myself to explain exactly what the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) meant. It was just astounding!
As we walked out of the airport, we were quite surprised when Dad easily found the taxi stand.
“How did you do that, dear?” Mom asked. “You’re usually quite terrible at finding your way out of an airport.”
Dad turned toward us and did our world-famous SCIENCE! pose.
“SIGNS!” he shouted, startling some families nearby. “I just looked at the signs pointing towards the taxi stand.” He grinned and relaxed his stance.
We took two taxis to the address in Brooklyn Inspector Lestrade had given us. When we arrived, Mom had to remind Dad that this was a tipping country, and Dad ran back to his taxi driver to give him more money.
Our apartment was on the third floor, and there was no lift in the building. This did not make me happy in the least. When we finally arrived on our floor, I saw that our apartment was small, but comfortable. There were three bedrooms so Mom and Dad took one room, Wendy and Eliza shared another and the last room had two bunk beds for Nazhar, Jimmy and me. Watson and Moran stayed in our room as well, with Moran plugging himself into the wall socket so that he would be fully charged for tomorrow.
“Okay kids, let’s go to bed and be ready early in the morning for when the inspector arrives,” Dad said. We were all pretty tired from the flight, so we didn’t need to be told twice.
We were awoken the next morning by knocking on the door. Dad answered it in his Firefly pyjamas.
“Good morning, Supper Club!” It was Inspector Lestrade dressed like a giant bagel.
“Now you dress up?” Eliza muttered as she emerged from her bedroom rubbing her eyes.
The inspector had a bag full of bagels in one hand, and two coffees in the other for Mom and Dad.
As we sat down for breakfast, I started to explain about the Greenwich Mean Time but everyone quickly asked the inspector about any updates she had on the case. I guess my explanation had to wait a little while longer.
“Are we going to meet Dr Yeun?” I asked instead, munching on my bagel. There was cream cheese spread between the bagel slices, making it tastier.
“Not right away,” the inspector said. “There’s another stop we have to make first.”
“What could be more important than meeting with Dr Yeun?” Nazhar asked.
“The Brooklyn Superhero Supply Store,” Inspector Lestrade said. “To look for clues.”
“Of course!” I said. “That makes perfect sense!” The Brooklyn Superhero Supply Store was one of 826 National’s many shops around the country that sold really neat themed items and held creative writing classes in the back. The Brooklyn store was superhero-themed, while the San Francisco store was pirate-themed and the Chicago store was spy-themed. I wanted to visit all seven of them, especially the one in Detroit, Michigan, which is the Liberty Street Robot Supply and Repair Store.
“What?” Eliza said. “Going to a shop first doesn’t make any sense at all.”
“Miss Eliza is correct,” Moran said. “The Superhero Supply Store only makes sense if we were looking for more cosplay materials, and not a stolen Hover Car.”
“Yeah, it sounds like Inspector Lestrade is just looking for an excuse to replenish her costume closet,” Wendy said, nodding.
“Non, that is not the reason at all!” Inspector Lestrade said holding both of her hands up in a gesture of innocence. “That is just a nice bonus.”
“Inspector Lestrade is right,” I said. “Remember, a superhero stole the car, and the Superhero Supply Store has supplies for superheroes.”
“It’s in the name and everything!” Jimmy said.
“Yeah!” I agreed.
Everybody still looked at me doubtfully.
“It won’t take very long to confirm,” the inspector said. “It’s just down the street. We can take a quick look and then go meet Dr Yeun at her office.”
“Well-if-it-is-just-down-the-street-then-let-us-not-delay,” Watson said. That was odd. Watson wasn’t usually a fan of doing much of anything.
We walked down the street and easily found the Superhero Supply Store. As soon as I stepped inside, I knew I had discovered one of the greatest places on earth. They had regular items like capes, masks and utility belts, as well as more uncommon things like cans of antimatter, secret identity kits with entire identities and a map of the Negative Zone. But most importantly, they had costumes of the Dark Defender. It was a one-piece black bodysuit, complete with hood and full-face mask.
An employee was sitting in the centre of the store. “Hello there. Have you ever sold a bunch of Dark Defender costumes at the same time?” I asked her.
“All the time,” she replied, smiling. “The Dark Defender is pretty big news here. Even bigger after her appearance at Comic-Con on Thursday.”
As we spoke, five girls ran into the store and immediately grabbed Dark Defender outfits in their sizes.
“See? We sell tons.”
“Did you have the costume before the Dark Defender first appeared?” I asked.
“Yeah, but we didn’t call it that,” she said. “It was just ‘Black Bodysuit’ back then.”
“And did you ever sell a bunch of Black Bodysuits at one time?”
“Not that I can remember. It wasn’t very popular before the Dark Defender started helping people.” She thought for a while longer, then said. “Oh! There was that one time! A woman came and bought like ten in one go, all in the same size.”
“Really?” I said.
“Yeah, I remember thinking—” She stopped suddenly and looked at me suspiciously. “Why are you so interested? Are you trying to expose her?”
“We ask the questions, young lady.” Inspector Lestrade showed up out of nowhere with one arm full of costumes and the other holding her Interpol badge. It was quite a feat given that she was still dressed as a giant bagel. “Please continue answering my colleague’s questions, s’il vous plait.”
“Woah, Interpol,” the lady said. “Okay, fine. I remember thinking that it seemed like a lot of costumes for just one person, but I didn’t think about it again until just now.”
“It’s possible that lady is the Dark Defender,” I said.
“Maybe, but why would you want to reveal her secret identity?” she asked. “Secret identities are very important to superheroes.”
“I know, believe me,” I said, “but we have reason to believe she may have committed a crime.”
“The Dark Defender?” she gasped. “I don’t believe it.”
“We have to investigate anyway.” She looked like she still couldn’t believe it, though pretty much everyone had witnessed the crime thanks to videos on the Internet, even if they didn’t know that was what they were looking at.
“Do you have cameras in here?” I asked. �
��Perhaps you caught her on film?”
“We might have, but the video is deleted every six months to make room for new video footage,” she said. “And even if we did still have it, she wore a trench coat and hat, hiding her face from the camera.”
“That wasn’t suspicious to you?” I asked.
“Of course it was, but it also wasn’t the strangest outfit that someone has worn into our store. We are partly a costume shop after all. Plus, she paid for her costumes and I respected her privacy.” She shrugged, looking at Inspector Lestrade the Bagel. “Besides, people should be allowed to wear whatever they want, yeah? I really didn’t think very much about it once she had left.”
“Do you still have the credit card receipt from her transaction?” I asked.
“If I’m not mistaken, she paid me in cash, but I can probably find the receipt,” she said. “All of our receipts are stored on the cloud. Just give me a few minutes to track it down.”
I left her and looked around the store again. Everyone was engrossed with the stuff on sale, even Eliza. Watson and Moran were looking at capes, while Mom and Dad were looking at the various cans of things like Immortality, Doom & Gloom and Joy. Jimmy and Wendy were looking at masks and magic wands, and Eliza and Nazhar were looking at the maps of superheroes in the American Northeast. I saw a few children come in and head into the back room, presumably for their creative writing classes.
“Found it,” she said. “She bought 10 Black Bodysuits, all the same size, as well as a couple of our children’s superhero costumes too. No children’s Black Bodysuits.”
“And there’s no name, right?” I asked.
“No, there isn’t.” She smiled, looking pleased. “Her secret identity remains safe.”
No, it wouldn’t be that easy. “Thank you for your help.”
Mom and Dad paid for everyone’s purchases, including a secret identity kit for me. Watson had bought five new capes. The inspector paid for her own purchases and made arrangements for them to be delivered to where she was staying—there was no way she would be able to carry everything she had bought.
“So it wasn’t just Inspector Lestrade who was glad for the excuse to come to this store?” I asked my robot.
“I-do-not-understand-what-you-mean. I-like-capes.”
Inspector Lestrade got us three taxis to Yeun Technologies, which was located in the West Village. Unlike the rest of Manhattan, which was in a nice grid pattern, the West Village’s layout was wilder and didn’t make much sense. Most of Manhattan had avenues that ran parallel north-south, and streets that ran parallel east-west. Most of them were numbered so it was very easy to tell which direction you were walking in: street numbers got bigger as you walked north, and avenue numbers got bigger as you walked west.
But the West Village was an entirely different beast. Streets and avenues bent, slanted and curved. Some roads started in the middle of nowhere, and ended in much the same place. It was very easy to get lost down there, especially in the days before Google Maps and similar apps. I had heard stories of grown men weeping when they reached the corner of 4th and 10th Streets, two streets that would never have met in any other part of Manhattan. Luckily, we didn’t have to go too deep into the West Village and were mostly safe. I couldn’t imagine Dad trying to navigate his way around the neighbourhood.
The Yeun Technologies headquarters was located in the corner of a short building on Christopher Street and 13th Street. We were greeted by Dr Yeun herself. She hurried us into her office and towards some lifts. She shushed me when I tried to ask her about the Hover Car as we walked across the lobby. I tried again in the lift (where we were quite cosy), but she quickly shook her head.
We walked into her office, which had walls made of clear glass all around. She shut the door with a soft click, then went behind her immaculate desk and tapped a button on the built-in console. Her glass walls darkened and became opaque.
“Wow,” Dad said. “You have to show me that trick, Lynda.”
“I’m sorry for the secrecy, but I haven’t actually told anyone else about the theft of the Hover Car,” Dr Yeun said. “By law, I will have to notify my investors about this theft soon, but I’m hoping we can solve all this before that deadline comes up. I haven’t even told my research assistant.”
“Told your precious research assistant what?” A woman of about the same height and build as Dr Yeun said as she banged into the office. She was more muscular than Dr Yeun, but still quite lean, and her hair was cropped short in a military-style buzz cut. She was wearing a black tank top and tan cargo pants with tools in every pocket. She actually looked a bit like Dr Yeun, especially around her eyes. She also had some bruising on her face.
“This is Dr Helen Loughlin. She’s the head of the engineering department and designed most of the Hover Car’s hardware,” Dr Yeun said. She did not remark on the other woman’s injuries.
“Yes, I did, so I would have appreciated a heads up that you had hired the most talked about superhero to help launch the biggest invention in our company’s history, Dr Yeun,” Dr Loughlin said.
I noticed Dr Yeun’s jaw tighten a bit.
“Yes, about that. Could you please call Julie up here so we can talk about the launch?” Dr Yeun asked.
Dr Loughlin sighed loudly. “You have a secretary, Dr Yeun, and he’s not me.”
“Really, Helen,” Dr Yeun snapped, crossing her office to her desk. The rest of us stood around awkwardly. “Marc, please ask Dr Barrowman to come up to my office as soon as possible.”
“Yes, Doctor,” a voice came from the intercom.
“So, you know who I am, but I don’t know who you are,” Dr Loughlin said to us. “Are you another pet project of my mother’s?”
Her mother?! We were surprised, and nobody answered right away. I guess that explained why they looked somewhat similar. Mom finally said, “We are guests of Dr Yeun’s.”
Dr Loughlin snorted. “Yes, I gathered, but why?”
“I’ll tell you once Julie is present,” Dr Yeun said. Her voice was sterner than we had ever heard it before. “Did you initially come here for some reason besides antagonising me?”
“Yes, I did, actually,” Dr Loughlin said, the hardness in her eyes disappearing slightly. “We’ve figured out how to make the Hover Car more fuel efficient. It’s now getting about one-third more mileage than before, and we’re pretty sure we can improve on that further.”
“That is good news,” Dr Yeun said. Her shoulders seem to relax a little as well. “We don’t need to give the tree huggers any more ammunition against us. They’re already angry about the possible disruption of birds’ flying patterns because, of course, we should let birds stand in the way of human progress.”
Dr Yeun gave a disgusted snort as another lady walked into the office.
“You called for me, Lynda?” she asked. Then she noticed us. “Oh, hello.”
She was wearing a white lab coat over a blue blouse and black pencil skirt. Her short brown bob framed her black glasses on her face. When she stood next to Dr Loughlin, I noticed the three doctors were all the same height.
“Please close the door, Julie,” Dr Yeun said. “This is Dr Julie Barrowman. Michael, I spoke to you briefly about her. She’s a brilliant applied physicist. She dabbles in the theoretical side as well, and is my head research assistant. She was responsible for the Hover Car’s software.”
“Nice to meet you all,” Dr Barrowman said, and gave a little wave.
“Now that you’re here, I can tell the both of you what happened in San Diego.” Dr Yeun took a deep breath. “That blasted superhero stole our car.”
“WHAT?!” both women yelled, then turned to look at each other.
“The im—uh, the Dark Defender stole the car?!” Dr Barrowman asked.
“Keep your voices down!” Dr Yeun said. “Nobody else knows except them—” she waved a hand at us “—and now you.”
Now that the news was out, a copy machine stepped forward and introduced herself as Ins
pector Lestrade from Interpol, startling everyone, especially the three doctors. We hadn’t even noticed when Inspector Lestrade made her costume change. I made a note to myself to talk to her about her stealth abilities, which I was sure would come in handy in the future. “I am looking into the theft, along with my colleagues, Sherlock Sam and the Supper Club. However, as per Dr Yeun’s request, I have not yet officially informed my office about this case.”
The rest of us then introduced ourselves. I couldn’t tell what the doctors were more surprised about (other than the cosplaying Interpol agent): that children were helping with the case, or that two of those children were robots.
“Aren’t you a little short to be detectives?” Dr Loughlin asked.
“We-make-up-for-it-with-attitude,” Watson said.
“Well, some of us do,” I said.
“Others-make-up-for-it-in-hunger.”
Wendy snickered.
Inspector Lestrade quickly summarised what had happened and ended with, “We don’t know very much at all, except that the thief flew the car all the way back to New York.”
“All the way back?” Dr Barrowman asked. “They had to have stopped for gas along the way.”
“I’m sorry, the Hover Car runs on regular petrol?” I asked.
“For now,” Dr Loughlin said. “But as I was just saying, we’re working on making it more fuel-efficient and environmentally friendly, and part of that is looking at alternative fuels. Are you sure it was the Dark Defender who stole the car?”
“It was the exact same costume,” I said.
“I can’t believe it,” Dr Loughlin said. “She’s helped so many people. She is a hero.”
“I always knew she was a menace,” Dr Barrowman said. “She’s just an egotist looking for the limelight, and now she’s found a way to do that while stealing our work.”
