“Now,” he said, “the first two years will be mostly classes, but in the third year your classes will include internships with nearby superheroes or superhero teams. The summers starting in your second year will all be intense physical training, and—”
The sound of someone clearing her throat sounded, audible everywhere in the conference room, but not unbearably loud. Just as obviously, it hadn’t come from the speakers near the front of the room.
“Yeah, right,” Vaughn said. “Cause we’re going to let you guys run away, and keep on robbing banks, and protesting with monkeys. That’s totally brilliant.”
Unless Evil Beatnik planned to use magic to tell Justice Fist to stop, I didn’t know how he’d do it. I supposed he could use a cellphone if he didn’t care about the rain. That said, in this case, the rain would destroy Mr. Beacham’s cellphone, and Evil Beatnik probably didn’t care.
Half an hour later Vaughn and I were flying away from the Parks and Recreation Department. The city had two ways to get at the speakers in Riverside Park—inside the park or through the system that allowed someone to address the entire downtown.
We wanted to pump our own music into the park, but we didn’t want to go there to set it up. Thus, our visit to Parks and Recreation.
We flew up to three hundred feet. I could see the Black River, News 10’s helicopter, Riverside Park, and all the people. Shouting and singing carried across the distance along with a hint of a drumbeat. Continue reading Under 30: Part 23
“Nick,” Jaclyn said, “call him back. They can take those devices you made.”
I knew what she meant—the devices I’d made that cancelled out the tones in Julie’s voice that allowed her power to work.
I called up the phone program on the computer, clicked to redial the Marvelous X, and got the receptionist.
As she said,”Hello, Michigan Heroes Alliance, how may I help you?” the picture on the wall screen changed. News 10 pointed their camera up away from the crowd, and above the river. Something gray flew toward them from the east. Continue reading Under 30: Part 22
“Doing about it?” Jaclyn said. “We were working on a plan to stop them, but we can go to the riot.”
The Marvelous X shook his head. “Please don’t. We’ve reason to believe a villain named Evil Beatnik is involved. You’ve likely never heard of him because he hasn’t been seen in years, but he can influence young people. We’ve organized a number of heroes that are too old for him to control. They’ll take care of him soon enough.”
“You’re sure about that?” Continue reading Under 30: Part 21
And he didn’t just remind me of Mr. Beacham, this was Mr. Beacham—with 100% more beatnik.
I adjusted the picture, scrolling away from the monkey on the balcony and back toward Mr. Beacham, and his hangers on.
Having recognized him, I knew who the woman with him was—Mr. Beacham’s girlfriend. She’d visited the school once. Was she with him because she thought he was Evil Beatnik, was Evil Beatnik controlling her, or did she somehow like Evil Beatnik? Had they… uh… I put the thought out of my mind, but it opened up a lot of relationship questions.
Could Haley and I survive something like that? I liked to think we would, but you never knew. Worse, the deeper we got into this whole superheroism thing, the better chance we had to find out.
So I put that thought out of my mind too.
Evil Beatnik walked in. I’d never seen him in that body, but I knew it instantly. He wore a black beret, black jeans, and a black turtleneck. Scruffy hair on his chin (and above his upper lip) hinted that he must be growing a goatee.
Oh, and he wore a silver ring on his right hand.
Except for pictures from the late 60’s and the 70’s, he’d always looked like that—even if he did possess different people each time.
I wondered who he was. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him. Continue reading Under 30: Part 19
With Dixie Supergirl’s hearing, I hadn’t dared to turn on the roachbot’s rocket. I’d decided to wait until I thought it had a good chance to get away without being heard. That meant hanging on to her utility belt until she got back to their lair.
Lair.
That makes it sound so much more dramatic, and ominous than it actually was.
Dixie didn’t stay to talk after that. She dived over the ledge, flew down two floors to rescue Destruction Boy, and left through the hole on the third floor.
As her feet left the ledge, I activated the roachbots I’d released earlier. They had a chance to catch her.
Jaclyn appeared out of the stairwell, and leaned over the edge of the walkway, watching them go.
Continue reading Under 30: Part 17
I barely saw him leave—just a blur of green and white. Jody followed, running away so quickly he might as well have teleported.
Out of the corner of my eye, Jaclyn appeared in the air, arcing upward, and landing at the edge of a third floor cell as I flew in. We both skidded to a stop on the floor, ripping the brown carpet.
Dayton stood on the walkway, past the shattered remains of the wooden door and its frame. He began to turn his head back toward us, probably noticing the noise, but even as he did, his eyes widened, and he began to pull himself over the metal railing.
I couldn’t see if he made it because fire filled my vision except for a string of errors from the suit’s readouts, all of which could be summarized by the phrase, “It’s getting too hot.” Continue reading Under 30: Part 15