School for Sidekicks (12 page)

“This,” he said, “is a deadly weapon in the right hands. I know that sounds silly.” A few of the students chuckled and Mike grinned as well. “But it's also true. Look, not everyone can punch through steel plate like Captain Commanding, or throw around plasma balls like Flareup. Heck, most of us don't even have the martial advantages of something like a Foxblaster.”

His expression grew more serious. “Frankly, most of us are a lot less super than that … and when I say most of
us
, I also mean most of
you
. For whatever reason, much of the younger generation of Masks—that's you—are not nearly as tough as your predecessors were at a similar age. How many of you think you could take a hit from Spartanicus like Quick here did and not wind up in a wooden box?”

The whole room turned and looked at me while I tried to sink into the floor. “I didn't exactly bounce back from that gracefully,” I mumbled when that didn't work.

Mike nodded, his expression still serious. “I'm glad you recognize that.” He looked at the rest of the class. “After Spartanicus blasted him, Quick spent ten days in a cocoon in a coma. He barely made it.”

“But he
did
make it,” said Jeda. “Sounds like he's a plenty tough hombre to me.”

“He got lucky, Speedslick,” replied Mike. “Agent Brendan was the first OSIRIS operative on scene. I've read her report. This is what it had to say on the topic: ‘Subject Evan Quick is in deep coma after his encounter with Spartanicus. His odds of survival are currently estimated at sixty-three percent. They are that high due entirely to having had his powers accidentally boosted by Mr. Implausible at the time of the blast. Odds of subject's survival without that boost estimated at point zero-zero-zero-two percent.'

“Pretty ugly, huh?” No one answered, and Mike continued, “But those are still better odds than mine in that same situation. I don't even have Quick's baseline healing factor. Neither do most of you. That doesn't mean the Hoods will take it easy on you. Being a Mask is a very dangerous business, one which is likely to get more than one of you killed.”

Mike stopped talking to let his words sink in. The room got very quiet and I wasn't the only one looking at my feet.

“Good, that's the response I hoped I'd get. It means you're listening
and
thinking. Which brings us back to this.” He brandished the fork. “I know it doesn't look like much, but there are a lot of things you can do with a fork in a fight.” He shifted his grip so that he was holding the back end out like a knife. “It's not very sharp, but it's thin, and it's strong enough to punch in under someone's ribs and up into something vital, or into an eye.”

He flipped it around again. “Or, if you're small, it's pretty much a trident.” He shrank down—a bizarre thing to watch given that he was such a bear of a man to start with—and gripped the fork like a spear. He looked for all the world like a prop from the world's tiniest gladiator movie.

“A fork for a trident?” Blurshift said doubtfully. “You're a pretty awesome teacher, but that seems a little weak.”

Mike laughed and grew back to regular size. “You're skeptical, and reasonably so. But, this fork saved my life once.” He dropped the fork back into the bin and pulled out the old
Mask Monthly
, opening it to a page flagged with a sticky note. “Look.”

The note marked a two-page article with the title “Minute Man Forks His Way Out of His Last Minutes.” He shook his head. “I never could get through to
Mask Monthly
that it was
my-newt man
and not
mih-nut man
—drove me crazy.”

Below the main headline was the opening, “Minute Man knocks the stuffing out of the Fluffinator. Armed only with a fork, the miniature Mask takes down killer teddy bear.”

“I popped its stitches.”

“I don't know,” said Blindmark. “Good against a remote-control bear is one thing. Good against a living, thinking opponent…”

Mike shook his head and rolled up the magazine. Then, moving with a speed that surprised me, he jabbed it toward Blindmark's midriff, tagging him just hard enough so that he gave out a little
whuff
as the air left his lungs.

“Hey, no fair,” he said. “I wasn't ready.” Mike raised an eyebrow at that and Blindmark blushed. “Yeah, the Hoods aren't going to wait for me to go into a battle trance either. Point taken.”

“Good.” Mike set the magazine back in the bucket. “Look, I'm not saying that any of you is going to take on someone like Spartanicus or HeartBurn with a magazine and a fork. That's simply not going to happen, though I did once knock Mr. Implausible out with a small bucket of squid, three chopsticks, and a spoonful of malt powder. What I'm trying to do is get you all to think in terms of using every available tool to save your own lives.”

He reached into the bucket and pulled out a plastic picnic knife. “Given any choice at all, this is not the weapon you want to bring to a gunfight. But if that fight comes to you when you're eating tuna salad in the park, you may not get the choice. You have to be ready to turn any old thing into the weapon that wins your battle. For the rest of the hour, I'm going to go through a whole list of daily items and demonstrate how to turn them to your advantage. Dental floss doubled up a few times makes a dandy garrote. Body spray quickly becomes a flamethrower. Jet cheese can destroy your enemy's traction.

“Here”—he pulled out a spoon—“let me give you a demonstration. Speedslick, hit that target-dummy button, would you?”

He pointed and Jeda blurred across the room. A half second later a door opened in the ceiling and a surprisingly lifelike mannequin descended. It was made of some soft material that looked much more like flesh than plastic.

“Start with grip. The best way to use a spoon as a weapon is to place the bowl of the spoon in your palm with the back side against your skin. That lets you brace the tip of the spoon against the heel of your hand. Now, the next bit will vary a bit depending on how your hand is shaped, but for most of you, you'll want to make a fist around the spoon with the handle sticking out between your middle two fingers like so.”

He held up his fist with the handle sticking out like a long steel spike. “See how nasty that looks? And it's only a spoon. You're going to use it to punch through one of the soft spots on your target.”

Mike suddenly lunged forward, throwing an underhanded punch that stabbed the end of the spoon into the dummy's belly right below the breastbone. There was a soft pop in the instant before the more meaty sound of Mike's fist hitting the mannequin's skin. As he pulled his hand back, a big drop of blue gel welled up from the hole where the spoon had gone in.

He touched it with his other hand. “This is probably the easiest target for a spoon. It's central, it's low, you can do a fair amount of damage if you angle the handle up toward the heart or into one of the lungs. That said, there are several more dangerous targets if the situation calls for.”

Mike struck again, this time driving up under the mannequin's chin. “If your spoon is long enough, you can punch it up through the roof of the mouth and into your opponent's brain. That's generally fatal.

“If you don't want to kill someone, but you do need to put them in the hospital you can also go for the kidneys.” He leapt forward, catching the dummy by the neck and spinning around it to plunge the handle of the spoon into its back below the ribs on the right side. “Or you can always go for an eye.”

NightHowl grinned. “Gruesome!”

“It is,” agreed Mike. “Flatware is great if you want to go for real injury. If you're looking to incapacitate, you want something in the plates or platters family. Or a vase is always good. Everyone will get a turn, but who wants to try the spoon first?” He held it up and Speedslick blurred his way to the front of the line.

As Speedslick went all sewing machine on the mannequin, Mike continued his lecture. “Starting next week, you'll be spending time in the school's battle simulation rooms, either with me for improvised weapons practice or with Professor Ivanova or one of our other teachers for your powers and martial arts drills. We'll set you up with various combat situations you're likely to encounter as a Mask and teach you how to fight your way out.

“In my class you will practice identifying everyday items that are potential weapons and using them against attack bots and your fellow students. As a mental exercise, tell me what you might do with this packet of dried sea monkeys…”

*   *   *

The rest of my day felt more like a typical school routine, with all the usual sorts of classes. Only three things really stood out as different from my old school. First, the colorful costumes and battle suits worn by many of the students. Second, the small but constant demonstrations of powers: like the geometry teacher, Professor Bankole, floating worksheets out to her students on a translucent blue platter that she projected from a gem embedded in her forehead. Or the pretty, older girl with skin the color of silver who blurred away down the hall when I made eye contact with her. Third, I got really, really tired of having to add “no handle” to every introduction.

“Man, I need a Mask name soon,” I said after about the three dozenth time it happened. I turned to Jeda—
Speedslick
, I mentally corrected myself, also for the three dozenth time. We were walking down the hall after our last class of the day, history. “You want to help me come up with one?”

He frowned. “I'd love to, but it doesn't work that way.”

“What do you mean?”

“Official handles are assigned by OSIRIS based on powers or affiliation.”

I stopped dead. “Wait, we don't even get to choose our own secret identities? That blows!”

“You didn't really think someone like HeartBurn chose her own name, did you?” said Jeda. “Come on,
HeartBurn
?”

“But HeartBurn's a Hood. Why would she have an OSIRIS-given name?”

“Because she's an AMO grad like most of the younger Hoods,” said 'Howl, walking up from behind us. “I think half of 'em go bad because they don't want to play second fiddle to some pathetic older Mask like Rockmeister or Farflung while they wait to get their Mask license.”

“Mask license?” I said. “Like driver's license? You're kidding, right?”

'Howl rolled her eyes. “Wish I was, but it's the truth. First, you have to get a sidekick's permit. Then, you do the whole minion thing until your Mask mentor says you're cool or you save the world or something fancy like that. Depending on when one of the official Masks takes you on, that can happen anytime between the end of freshman year and sometime after graduation. Then you still have to take writtens and practicals before they license you. It totally blows monkey chunks.”

“How come I've never heard
any
of this?” I demanded. “I thought I was the ultimate Mask nerd.”

“Nobody talks about this stuff to outsiders,” said Speedslick. “Not if they want to stay on OSIRIS's good side. And
everyone
wants to stay on their good side, even most of the Hoods.”

That brought me up short. “Really, why? I mean, I can see why the good guys don't want OSIRIS on their case. But what's up with the bad guys? Isn't taking people like Spartanicus down a big part of OSIRIS's job?”

'Howl and Speedslick looked at each other. Then, both looked around shiftily, like they were making sure no one was listening.

Finally, 'Howl, said, “Come on, let me show you something,” and started walking.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“You'll see,” she growled.

Then she shut up and wouldn't say another word as she led us through a maze of doors and passages, several of which were marked with phrases like “authorized personnel only.” Eventually, we came to the base of a narrow spiral ramp and started up.

After what must have been ten floors of steady climbing with no end in sight, I finally asked, “Where
are
we?”

She countered with a question, “You ever hear of the AMO before you got sent here?”

“No.” I hadn't—or I'd have been begging my parents to send me here, powers or no.

“And you're a self-admitted Mask nerd. Seem a little strange to you?”

“When you put it that way, yeah.”

“So, you want to know why
no one's
ever heard of the AMO?” she continued. “I mean, a whole freaking school full of baby metas just learning how to handle their powers. People like Emberdown, with her lasers and fire bursts. Or Sparkle. You know Sparkle?” She glanced at Speedslick.

“Dude's a living firework,” he replied as we turned onto another flight—this one with a door at the top.

“'Zactly!” she said. “Now, how do you hide something like that from the world?”

“I don't know,” I answered.

“Like this.” She pushed open the door and gestured me through.

I froze with one foot on the threshold. Beyond, there were stars. Nothing but endless, impossibly bright stars. 'Howl gave me a gentle shove and I stumbled forward into a huge domed room something like a greenhouse. The door opened out of a small shedlike structure in the center of a slightly sunken well at the center of the dome. Above, the sky was blacker than I'd ever seen it.

“This is how you hide a school like the AMO from the world,” said 'Howl. “By putting it on another one.”

“Where…” I couldn't even finish the question as I stumbled forward up the low ramp that climbed out of the well. I was too awestruck.

Speedslick put his hands on my shoulders and very gently turned me around. That's when I sat down on the floor because my knees gave out. A huge arc of red-brown desert dominated the view on that side.