Sidekick: The Misadventures of the New Scarlet Knight (12 page)

“Not really,” Paragon continued. “There’s some microscopic scorching on the carpet that suggests friction burns, but that sort of comes par for the course with a speedster. Zip probably caused them himself sometime in the past.”

“Do we have a clue how they got in or out?” Prism asked.

“Not that I see. The door was locked from the inside when I teleported in. Mystery insists he didn’t lock it, so it was either the killer or Seth himself. I can’t figure out how the killer escaped, either. It’s like they vanished.”

Not something I wanted to hear, but a definite clue. “Any residual smoke in the room?” I asked.

Paragon looked at me, confused. “A little bit. I thought it might have been tobacco smoke. Is it significant?”

“Well, it sort of confirms who did this, doesn’t it?”

This time, everyone stared at me. Even Mystery stopped dictating his notes and observations and turned to look at me.

“Isn’t it obvious? It’s Uncle Jack’s killer.”

“Jack’s killer?” Prism choked on those two words. “How can you be so sure?”

“Oh come on, you mean you five haven’t figured out … ” Their dumbfounded looks, which were running the risk of turning into angry glares, told me they certainly hadn’t figured out anything. I sighed. “He didn’t tell you, did he?” Then I panicked. “He never told you! He … ” I ran across to the desk where the two of us had examined the video the day before.

The portable hard drive was gone.

“No.” I threw myself into the Professor’s desk chair so hard I nearly skidded across the room and had to grab the edge of the desk to steady myself. I quickly searched through what would have been the obvious places for him to stash copies of the footage on his computer. They were all empty.

“NO!” I shouted as I ripped the desk apart, hoping to find he’d stashed the drive somewhere in a drawer to keep it safe. No such luck. I would have smashed the lock off the filing cabinet and searched those drawers if my sword hadn’t been locked up in my ex-principal’s office, halfway across the country. I was thinking about trying it with my bare hands when Prism put her hand on my shoulder.

“Bobby, what’s going on?”

“He never told any of you. He didn’t say anything. And now it’s gone. The only evidence I had is gone and none of you … ”

“Bobby, take a deep breath.”

I did as Prism told me and somehow managed to pull myself back together.

“Now, please tell me what you’re talking about,” she said.

“I don’t know exactly who killed Mr. Zip, but I think I know why.”

***

All eyes fell on me as I recounted the events of the past couple of days. I told them about the confrontation at the blacksmith’s, the questioning by the police, my conversation with the Professor as we reviewed the security camera footage, his observations and deductions, and his promise to call in the others, which he obviously did not do. “Now Mr. Zip is dead, and the only evidence that might lead us to the person who probably killed him is gone.”

“Not good.” It was a hell of an understatement, the kind of thing I’d come to expect from Mystery. He stared at the ceiling, a move I’d caught him doing a couple of times in the past when he was trying to solve a puzzle, as if he could see all the pieces fall into place against the blank canvas above him, but his manner and his comment revealed another motive. “I didn’t see any security cameras in here any of the times I’d visited Seth. Can any of you find any I might have missed?”

Yeah, right, like the greatest detective in the world would miss something we could find. Still, we all did our bits. Paragon swept the room with both vision and hearing, as did Clytemnestra, although her senses weren’t quite as keen as his. Prism shot beams through the jewel in her necklace, coating the walls with fine beams of light, and then shook her head no. Morgaine whispered one of her spells but didn’t seem to dig up anything. Finally, I pushed my visor back down and cycled through the scanner modes it provided. None of them showed anything out of the ordinary. At least, nothing less ordinary than the six of us, and certainly nothing that looked like a camera, scanner, or electronic recorder of any kind, hidden away. “I got nothing.”

“Then we’re stuck,” Mystery said and grunted.

“I don’t understand,” Morgaine said. “If he had this footage and thought it might reveal who killed Jack, why didn’t he bring it to the rest of us?”

It pained me to say it, but judging by the confused looks on their faces none of the others had made the same conclusions I had. “He went rogue.”

“What?” Mystery cocked an eyebrow and looked at me. “Are you saying he went over to the bad guys’ side?”

“Not like that.” Geez, didn’t any of them keep up with modern slang? “He decided to go it alone and face the killer on his own.”

I could have sworn I heard an audible gasp, but no one was betraying any kind of shock with their facial expressions. Mystery continued. “You mean he figured out who was in that video? He knew who killed Jack?”

“I’m almost certain. He even asked me at one point if I knew who it was, as if I should have already guessed. He thought it was someone who knew my secret identity, which sort of cuts down the number of suspects. He must have picked up on some clue he didn’t share with me and decided not to share with any of you. I’ll bet he confronted the killer on his own.”

“But why would he do such a stupid thing?” Prism was so worked up by the idea of Mr. Zip not confiding in any of them that she was shouting. “Why go it alone?”

“I can only think of two possible reasons. First, his friendship with Uncle Jack might have led him to it. After all, they hung out a lot when out of costume. That was how I got to be so close to Tommy.” Everyone nodded. “Zip might have wanted to take revenge by himself. But I doubt he was that stupid, or that arrogant, to want to deny the rest of us a share in the vengeance. This leaves the second possible motivation.” I sat on a relatively unscathed portion of the desk. Just the thought of what I was about to say next made me weak in the knees; it was too terrible to contemplate. “The second possible motivation is that he felt he couldn’t trust any of us. Or one of us, at least.”

“Bobby?” Clytemnestra was trying to be her usual, imperious self, but the tiniest of cracks in her voice told me she was coming to the same conclusions, and they unsettled her, too. “What are you trying to say?”

“I think Mr. Zip recognized the person on the video, or at least thought he did.” I swallowed. “And realized it was one of you.”

Awkward?

If you ever want an uncomfortable situation, try informing the five most powerful people in the Universe that you think one of them might have knocked off numbers six and seven.

“Let me get this straight.” Paragon’s voice could cut through any noise and drown out all the others, so when he spoke, it commanded our attention. “Are you accusing one of us of killing the Scarlet Knight and Mr. Zip?”

“I’m not accusing anyone of anything. Hell, for all I know they both spontaneously combusted in strategic parts of their body. All I’m saying is that I think Mr. Zip recognized the person in that video, thought it might have been one of you, and thus didn’t communicate his suspicions to anyone because he didn’t know who he could trust.” I stood back up and would have paced if there weren’t so many of us in such a cramped space. “Or it could have been one of the Knight’s old enemies who recognized me and tracked me out here yesterday, then realized why I’d visited. Or one of his old enemies who didn’t realize the importance of what was on the drive. Or maybe Zip got distracted before he could call in all of you. Or maybe it was
bunnies
that did it all. I don’t know the whole story, but it comes down to Sherlock Holmes or Occam’s razor. Is it the only improbable option out of a sea of impossibilities, like Holmes said? Or is it the simplest answer that’s right, as Occam insisted? I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ve been shaving pretty closely these past couple weeks, so I’m leaning toward Occam.”

Glances went around the room. Everyone looked at each other, people they’d not only worked and fought with, but also trusted with their lives and greatest secrets. I doubted any of us really believed it was possible, but all the evidence kept pointing that way, and it froze our blood faster than Captain Icebox could ever have hoped to. I had to jump back in and defuse a potentially dangerous situation. “Maybe I’m wrong. Hell, I’m
praying
I’m wrong. I can’t really imagine any of us doing this. That’s not who we are. Not any of us.”

“What we need to keep in mind,” Prism offered meekly, “is that this happened because Seth didn’t trust us. For whatever reason, he didn’t trust us, and now he’s dead. We’ve all been together for far too long. Whatever the truth ends up being in the end, we can’t start pointing fingers now. We need to trust each other now more than ever.”

“Prism is right,” Clytemnestra said with a sigh. “We’ve always watched each other’s backs, and we need to keep doing so. This isn’t the time to start doubting each other.” She turned to me. “Bobby, is there another copy of the security footage?”

“The police took the videotape. I brought the hard drive here for Zip to examine, and it looks like it’s gone.” I looked over at the computer where Professor Smith and I had examined the footage the day before, and a possibility came to me. “I didn’t do a very thorough search of his computer. He might have copied the footage to a less conspicuous directory. Or the person who deleted it might not have done as thorough a job as they thought. It might be worth giving the machine a proper forensic work over. Who’s our computer expert here?”

The silence that followed was a perfect verbal (okay, non-verbal) smack upside the head. “I’m sorry, I cannot brain today, I have the dumb. It was Uncle Jack. How could I forget that?” I yanked the cables out of the back of the machine and picked it up. “I’ll see what I can do. Besides, now I have the time to do it.” Hell, I had nothing but time anymore. “I want to get a head start on this one. Can you folks do without me here?”

“I don’t see why not.” Paragon looked over at Mystery, who nodded. “I’m afraid all that’s left here is cleanup detail, and I think Mister Mystery and I are best equipped for that now. See what you can find on the computer and let all of us know the second you find anything. Same goes for the rest of you. Try to dig up any leads you can, and share anything with everyone immediately, no matter how minor.”

We all nodded, even though I had a sneaking suspicion that the instructions were a not-so-subtle rebuke for me. “I really don’t want to go through that teleporter again right now. Is there a sneaky way out of here, or did Zip just rely on that whole ‘move faster than the human eye’ trick?”

“I’m going your way anyhow,” Prism said as if “my way” was around the block, not “vaguely to the east.” “Would you like some company?”

“Be glad to have it.” I probably would have called her for a long talk, if not a fully-fledged appointment, just based on the events from earlier in the day, and I was not opposed to having our talk while flying home.

“Good, then I can phase both of us out of here.” She fingered her necklace, and a strange bubble of bluish light surrounded us. The light flowed through me and felt a little odd, sort of like I was being pulled apart by the teleporter, but just a little bit, and more tingly than
ow, that hurts like hell
.
“I’ll touch base with everyone later. Take care of yourselves.”

“You two as well.” Clytemnestra waved.

“Watch your backs,” Mystery said with a hiss, and then returned to what was left of Mr. Zip.

Prism floated upward, and her bubble pulled me off the ground. I activated my anti-gravs and assumed what I liked to think of as “flight position” just in case she decided to drop the bubble without warning.

“Brace yourself,” she said, and then rocketed through the wall, dragging me along with her.

A moment later, we were out in the open air and high above the college. I felt myself snap the rest of the way together and a slight dip in altitude as she shut off her bubble, and I found myself once more flying solely under my own power. The GPS in my helmet picked up our location and gave me a compass heading for home. I followed its heading and took off. Prism followed right alongside me and wasted no time jumping right into social-worker-
cum-
therapist-
cum
-confidante role of hers. “It wasn’t your fault, Bobby.”

“I never said it was.”

“But you were
thinking
it was. I know you, remember? I could see it in your face.”

“Like you said, he made the mistake of not trusting you folks. I made a mistake, too. I trusted
him
. If I’d thought for a second he wasn’t going to share the information, I would have taken the drive with me, banged over to Headquarters, and sent word out to everyone myself. That’s probably what I should have done.”

“Chalk it up to inexperience. But the final, fatal mistake was his and his alone, not yours.”

“Bad time to be new on the job, I guess. All I know is I’m getting sick and tired of watching other heroes die. That’s not what I signed up for.”

Prism’s silence was deafening. When you have someone who loves to talk as much as she does, even one minute with nothing being said is the equivalent of getting a month’s worth of the silent treatment from someone else. I figured the time had come to deal with the elephant in the room, or at least the one hovering between us at ten thousand feet. “There’s something I haven’t told any of you.”

“I was wondering when you were going to say something. You’ve got a weight on your shoulders. Unload.”

“I dropped out of school this morning.”

“What?” I could tell she wanted to scream at me but was holding back. Maybe she thought snapping would be counterproductive, but I’d be willing to bet she knew that if she screamed as loud as she wanted she would short out the speakers in my helmet, and I’d never be able to respond properly.

“It was just a couple of minutes before we found out about Zip.” I filled her in on the whole sorry story, dancing around the fact that both a cop and my guidance counselor now knew my secret identity. I wasn’t in the mood for a
they call it a “secret” identity for a reason
lecture. Plus, that kind of news might make her scream and overload my circuitry all the same.