Trainee Superhero (Book Three) (2 page)

“Too tight.”

The next helmet is way too big and sits
loosely on my head.

“Too big.”

Brat
passes me up a third one.

“Try this, Goldilocks.”

Perfect. I nod and smile.

Talented Brat
opens a box on the table
and starts pulling out all kinds of equipment.

“Now... the auxiliaries.”

He hands me a small fire extinguisher, a set
of flares, a med pack, and a collection of lights. He shows me
where to stow them in pockets across my suit. All the equipment is
smaller and far more advanced than anything a civilian could hope
to use, but it’s not exciting. I make the mistake of saying so to
Talented Brat
.

“You’ll change your mind when you suit’s on
fire,” he says.

I don’t think he’s joking.

I stand still as he welds the multiblaster to
the arm of my new suit. He adds a powerful torch to the wrist.

“This suit will have lots of lights. Now for
more weapons,” he says, waving his hands towards the hundred or so
different options lying on the tables.

My eye is caught by a sword, dark and
beautiful, lying alone on a slab of granite. The sword is huge,
nearly as tall as I am and about eight inches wide. The black blade
looks sharp enough to shave with. A curving line of blue LEDs runs
down the center of the blade and around the long handle. The sword
looks born to kill saucers, like it could cut through their metal
skin without even noticing. It also looks solid and far, far too
heavy for anyone to actually pick up, never mind use. I have never
seen a more impractical weapon in my life, and I want it
immediately.

“Can I have that one?” I ask.

“No.”

“Please?”

“No.”

“Pretty please?”

“No! You think you are the first person to
ask? Everyone who walks in here wants that sword, but it's too damn
big to be any use. I'm thinking of taking it apart.”

“No way! Beauty can be its own
justification.”

My mom used to say that to me.
Brat
pauses in his work and gives me a long look.

“I had an old teacher who used to say that
all the time,” he tells me, “which is probably why that thing's
still here. Now, shut up.”

Brat
picks up a short power sword,
looks at it, looks at me, looks back at it, shakes his head and
puts it back down. He runs his hands over an array of axes and
spears before moving on to a collection of maces. He settles on a
small mace ending in a spiked ball. My heart sinks; it's boring in
comparison to the other weapons.

“Can't I have a cooler one?”

“What does the sign on my door say?”

“Operators and staff with C-12 clearance and
above only?”

“Not that one!”

“Come in, shut up, don't touch anything,
stand still, and do as you are told.”

“That's right. Now, sling the mace over your
shoulder.”

I sling the mace into a sheath over my
shoulder.
Brat
ties it in place so that I can just reach it.
He shakes his head, takes it off and throws it to the ground. A
technician runs over and removes it.
Brat
picks up a
shoulder cannon, a spear, and a force hammer but shakes his head
and throws them aside in frustration.

“You can’t use any of this stuff,” he says
angrily, slamming a hammer down on the table.

Another technician walks over. She looks
older than
Talented Brat
, and she has a set of complicated
goggles on her head.

“I’m
Second Best
,” she says, and I can
tell that she doesn’t like the name.

“
Second Best
is my assistant,” says
Brat
.

“No I’m not. I have seniority here.”

“Whatever. This is my case, you can go
away.”

They start arguing, so I interrupt them.

“Can I have a bigger gun?” I blurt out.

“No,” says
Brat
at the same time as
Best
says “yes.”

Brat
rolls his eyes and is about to
leave when
Second Best
whispers something in his ear. He
looks back at me in surprise.

“Saucer, really? Well that’s different
then.”

They turn back and consider me skeptically.
Brat
hums to himself and looks mildly annoyed.

“What about the rainbow cannon?”
Second
Best
suggests at last.

“The hypercolor ray gun? I never got that
working with any degree of accuracy. Pretty sure I broke it down
for scrap.”

“It targets in the same manner as the
multiblaster… and I hid it in my stash. Let’s hook it up-”

“-it’s never going to work; the overload is
just too quick-”

“-I've been tinkering with it. I added a
couple of power loops from wreck 8889 and ran the power feed
through one of your high steam inhibitor columns. I think we can
get the overload down-”

“What! When did you-”

They start arguing in their high-tech jargon,
and I'm quickly lost despite my best efforts to pay attention.
Talented Brat
calls a few of his assistants over and bosses
them around the workshop. The arm of a power suit arrives from
storage, closely followed by a mess of wires, a heap of spare parts
and what looks a long metal rod mounted in coils of copper piping.
I watch as they weld the rod to the arm and start wiring it in
place.

“The cannon is water cooled, so don't be too
surprised if it starts leaking steam. If the gun gets too hot the
fuses will melt and the whole thing will stop working, so you
shouldn't be able to overload it,” explains
Second Best
.

“How hot is too hot?” I ask. It is going to
be strapped to my arm, after all.

“The fuses will melt at around ninety degrees
Celsius. Now-”

It doesn't take me long to do the
calculations in my head: my arm will melt before the fuses do.
That’s some great design work, team.

The color cannon is a bulky barrel that
starts above my shoulder, runs down my arm and juts out a foot or
so past my hand. It ends in three platinum spikes and looks like a
dragon claw.

“Reminds me of my tat-a-gotchi.”

“Ah, which one do you have?” asks
Brat

“The small silver dragon. You know them?”

“I invented them. The silver is rare, you
should be pleased.”

“You didn’t invent them, you just patented
them,” puts in
Second Best
.

“Same thing.”

“No, it’s not. I think-”

“-mirror!” shouts
Brat
, and a
full-length mirror folds out of the ceiling in front of me.

“Happy?” he asks.

I am. I look good, almost like a real
superhero, and I can't wait to take this color cannon for a spin.
I'm super happy.

“Not that I care. Now get that suit off and
get out,”
Brat
says, “I've got important things to do. I
want to get to the cafeteria before all the lasagna is gone.”

He walks off.

“There’s no lasagna today,”
Second
Best
says, “but I’m glad to be rid of him. Follow me.”

She leads me through the workshop and into a
large office that’s dominated by a desk. The desk is clear, but
every wall contains shelves of weird alien tech. There’s a single
picture on the wall of two women standing side by side at a
restaurant. They are both smiling.

It takes me a moment to recognize that one of
the women is my own mother. I sit down on a crate of welding
supplies while
Second Best
makes us coffee.

“I hear your shields are good,” she says.

“Yes, I guess they are.”

“You can thank your mom for that, you
know.”

“Why?”

Second Best
taps the side of her
head.

“We gave you an unfair advantage, you see. To
keep you alive.”

Alien tech in my head? That I didn’t put
there myself?

“Plus the stuff you put there yourself. Oh
yes, I noticed even if
Brat
didn’t. That was very risky, but
they seem to be working. Come on, I’ll tune them up for you.”

She spends half an hour checking over my
implants. Everything seems fine.

“One of a kind, your mother. She invented the
test they gave you at the Superhero Corps recruitment center. You
were the first civilian she tried it on, but you were probably too
young to remember. You had enough superpowers to get into the
Corps, but not enough power to survive for long. Her implants allow
you to control your shields better than anyone else can.”

“Why didn’t she give me an implant to help me
control my weapons?” I ask.

Second Best
gives me a long, knowing
look.

“She was your
mother
,” she says, “not
some mad scientist. Now, let’s take that new suit out for a
spin.”

Wait… did I really see Tenchi?

“I was born rich, handsome and well
connected. Yes, I was born lucky. I could have had an easy life,
but life without risk is a dull thing. I will earn my
greatness.”

-Extract from
Born Lucky
's email to
Dark Fire
, the only occasion of someone volunteering for the
Cerberus Brawlers
.

“
Cold Comet
was like a daughter to me,
and I will never forget her. I also lost an arm and most of my leg
that day, and I may never fly again. Yet what we found will save
the Earth, and isn’t that our purpose?”

-
Master Bansuri
, statement at
Dark
Fire
’s trial.

I’m climbing the infinity wall when
Small
Talk
arrives at the bottom. I ignore him; I’m so close to that
stupid bell that this could be the run.

My collar explodes in pain and I hit the
mat.

“The boss wants to see you,”
Small
Talk
says, leaning over me.

He grabs my arm and escorts me out of the
training hall up corridors I’ve never used before. We pass
stewards, technicians and medics who do their best to stay out of
our way.
Small Talk
leads me up a set of stairs and into a
small, dark office with a single window looking over the
Cerberus
’ three cannons. We must be in the boat’s island,
the tower sitting to one side of the deck. The room is dominated by
a wooden desk piled high with computers and hologram projectors. A
bookshelf runs along one wall of the room, and
Never Lies
is
browsing the books. She doesn’t look up when we enter.
Past
Prime
is also here, standing beside a weapons rack that holds
long metal swords.
Small Talk
points me to the center of the
room and then stands beside
Never Lies
.

Dark Fire
is sitting behind the desk;
he does not look happy to see me. He’s in full combat armor. Come
to think of it, I’ve never seen him out of his armor. He’s about
four feet tall, but exudes power.

“
Red Five
,” he says, “this panel has
convened to assess your potential as a superhero. We have come to
the conclusion that you have some talent, but not enough to be
accepted into our team. You are too prone to risk, and to
injury.”

“What? Come on!” I object.

“You need to work harder if you want to make
it.”

Work harder?

“I'm working as hard as I can,” I say.

“Then this is as good as you will ever get,”
says
Dark Fire
.

“Then this is as good as I’ll ever get,” I
argue back, “but I think I’ve shown it's good enough for cannon
fodder. The
Cerberus Brawlers
have had a lot of casualties
recently, so you need me.”

My three instructors glare at me.

“Why are you here?” asks
Dark
Fire
.

“
Past Prime
brought me,” I answer.

Never Lies
chuckles, so I guess that
was the wrong answer.

“I want to be a superhero,” I try.

Small Talk
just shakes his head at
that.

A silence descends on the room. They are
still waiting on my answer.

“I want to avenge my mother. I want to kill
saucers.”

Another awkward pause.

“You are charged with assaulting
The
General
with full knowledge as to his identity. Assaulting a
superhero is considered treason,” says
Dark Fire
.

“I never-”

“-we don’t care. All three of your
instructors have taken a swing at
The General
at one point
or another, and so have I. The point is that you were sent here,
but you are too young. I know that
Past Prime
has talked to
you about joining
Mercy
…have you considered it?”

“No. No disrespect to
Mercy
, they do
good work, but I want to fight. You need me.”

“We knew your mother,” says
Dark Fire
,
“and she wouldn’t want you to die so young. We owe her.”

That shuts me up, but not for long.

“I’m staying.”

“You should-”

“I’m staying!” I yell.

No one responds to my tantrum. A deep and
awkward silence falls over the room.

“We have been testing you. You are too slow
in sparring, in climbing,” says
Dark Fire
at last. “You have
some talent in assessment and information gathering, but you lack
precision. You are too young, too rash. We don’t want your death on
our hands.”

“-No!” I interrupted forcefully, “I want to
fight. Cape or coffin, nothing in between. You would be stupid to
send me to
Mercy
.”

“Dangerous, boy,” mutters
Past
Prime
.

I don’t apologize.

“This is a good offer. You will be safe.
Think about it,” urges
Never Lies
, “really.”

“I have.”

Every day of my life since Mom died.

“Everybody dies eventually,” I say, “I just
want to die trying to do something good.”