The Nameless Hero (24 page)

“Once you’ve taken this … this new form”—Gavin shivered—“and I’ve brought you Joshua Dread, then my end of the deal is complete? Right? The rest of the team will remain unharmed? And the headquarters will be mine—for good?”

“That is correct. You will have your little team of superheroes.” Vex spat out the last word like it left a foul taste in his mouth. “And your state-of-the-art training facility. I’ll have no need for it—
or you
—once I get what I want.”

I was so glued to the video that I hardly noticed Elliot bumbling around, trying to straighten up the mess inside the salon. As usual, his attempts to clean only made things worse. He stepped on a bottle of sunscreen, spewing lotion across the floor. Bending down to clean
that
up, he knocked a small plastic container off the counter.

None of us realized what was inside the container until it hit the ground. The cap popped off and a horde of tiny robotic bugs came crawling out. All of a sudden, my dad screamed—

“THE METAL-EATING ANTS—THEY’RE ESCAPING!”

This was about the time when the situation went from really bad to code-red catastrophic.

It took my brain a split second to catch up with the chaos breaking loose all around me. The container of metal-eating ants. Dad had originally gotten it out to free me from the chain. Once it was no longer necessary, he probably should’ve returned it to his utility belt. Instead, he’d absentmindedly placed the container on the counter and forgotten about it. At least until the moment when Elliot had knocked it to the ground, sending a flurry of robotic ants in every direction.

Elliot lurched across the floor chasing after the ants, while the ants seemed even more interested in chasing after
him
. His eyes glowed bright with a look of genuine fear when he realized what was going on.

“BAD ANTS TRYYYYING TO EAT MEEEEE!” he wailed.

Dad’s face twisted with an expression of intense pain. His inventions were attacking each other.

“Elliot, you have to get out of here!” Dad stumbled across the salon, knocking the metal-eating ants away from his robot butler. He and Elliott staggered through the broken doorway and into the parking lot. Elliot hopped up and down while Dad circled him frantically, trying to shake the ants off.

It was a good thing there weren’t any people in the parking lot this late at night. They might have wondered why a supervillain and a trash can with legs appeared to be dancing outside a tanning salon.

Meanwhile, Brandy and my mom were desperately trying to stop the ants from getting to the Liberty Bell, scooping the little robotic insects back into the plastic container before they could turn a national landmark into an all-you-can-eat metal buffet.

That was when I remembered the clone in the corner. I rushed across the salon, but the metal-eating ants had beaten me there. They’d already chewed through his chains, and now the clone was on his feet, an awful leer plastered across his face.

He bolted past me, pausing at the counter long enough to hit a red button at the top of the cash register. An alarm began ringing at earsplitting volume.

“So long, suckers!” the clone screamed above the alarm, rushing out the front door. Dad was too busy clearing away the last of the ants to notice the clone that raced past him and disappeared into the night.

Brandy hurried over to the counter and punched several keys on the cash register, shutting off the alarm.

“This is bad,” Brandy said. “This is
very
bad. If Multiplier thinks something’s gone wrong, there’s no telling what he’ll do. We need to get down to headquarters—
now
.”

“How’re we gonna do that?” I glanced toward the pile of charred dust where the tanning bed used to be. “Our ride’s not looking so good.”

Brandy thought for a moment. “There
is
another way.”

Mom and I followed Brandy into the parking lot, where Dad was staring down sadly at the squished robotic insects around his feet.

“Took me six months to build those metal-eating ants,” he said in a regretful voice. “And six minutes to destroy them.”

Elliot didn’t sound nearly as upset. “Baaad ants!” he droned, stepping on a few of them to make sure they’d been completely destroyed.

“Here.” Mom handed the plastic container to Dad. “At least we managed to retrieve a few.”

Around us, streetlights glowed in the darkness. My pulse quickened as I thought of the others down in headquarters, still unaware that Gavin was working with Vex. We had to help them before it was too late.

If
it wasn’t too late already.

Brandy led us across the parking lot, past other stores
in the shopping center. “Most of these are just ordinary shops,” she explained. “But Tantastic wasn’t the
only
portal to headquarters. Vex needed a secret way to transport cargo that wouldn’t fit in the tanning bed. Something much bigger. So he used this place.”

Brandy came to a stop at a glass storefront. I looked at the logo on the door.

Smoothie Sensations

“The supersecret cargo transport is … a smoothie shop?”

“Exactly.” Brandy inserted a key and pushed open the front door. The rest of us followed her inside.

“So where’s the elevator?” I asked, looking around.

“You’re standing in it.” Brandy moved behind the counter, past gleaming refrigerators and sinks, until she reached a row of blenders. Stuck to one of these blenders was a sign that read,
OUT OF ORDER
. Brandy removed the sign and pressed several of the buttons that lined the base of the blender—one after the other—as if punching in a security code.

CHOP
 … 
CRUSH ICE
 … 
LIQUEFY
 … 
CHOP
 … 
DELUXE

All at once, everything shifted into motion. I watched with surprise as the sidewalk rose higher and higher in the window. But the sidewalk
wasn’t
rising.
We
were sinking. Before long, the smoothie shop had submerged beneath the earth completely.

“Quite a cargo elevator you have here,” Dad said, sounding impressed.

Normally, I would’ve been pretty amazed too. Heck, I
probably would’ve made myself a smoothie for the ride. But right then, I was too worried about the others.

Along the way, we discussed what to do once we reached headquarters.

“Nobody else knows the truth about Gavin,” Brandy said. “Not even Trace. Multiplier has them all locked in a holding cell. That way, Gavin can claim he’s innocent.”

“But if Multiplier heard the alarm, he’ll be expecting intruders,” Mom pointed out.

“And if we try to take him by surprise, there’s a risk that he’ll harm the other children,” Dad said.

“Don’t forget, everyone trusts Gavin. And they think you’re a traitor,” I said to Brandy.

The conversation dropped away into silence. I listened to the groaning of cables carrying us deeper into the ground.

It wasn’t until we’d nearly reached headquarters that Brandy’s eyes lit up and the faint trace of a smile appeared on her lips. “I think I might know a way.…”

When the smoothie shop finally came to a halt, Brandy led us hurriedly through headquarters. Except she didn’t look like Brandy anymore. She’d Shifted along the way, changing into someone who was shorter, balder, and fatter.

She looked exactly like Gavin.

“Are you sure this is going to work?” I asked.

“Not entirely,” Brandy said in Gavin’s gravelly voice. “But it’s the best chance we’ve got.”

At a pair of double doors, she paused, taking a deep breath and mumbling something about “getting into character.” Then she grabbed hold of my mom and shoved a plasma gun into her side with one hairy-knuckled hand.

“Sorry about that,” she said. “Now, remember, you’re my hostages. Got it?”

Dad and I held our hands above our heads, trying to
look scared. Elliot paddled from side to side, letting out an electronic moan.

“Good enough.” Brandy pushed a button on the wall, and the doors slid open.

Multiplier spun around. His face filled with shock at the sight of Gavin. And I could understand why. Inside the holding cell was another Gavin, who looked identical to the one Brandy was impersonating. A surge of relief shot through me when I saw who was with him in the holding cell: Sophie, Milton, Miranda, nFinity, and Trace. Their weapons and utility belts had been taken, but at least they looked okay.

Multiplier fumbled for his plasma pistol and aimed it at us.

“Put that thing down,” Brandy snapped, doing a perfect impression of Gavin. “I’m on your side. Caught these two supervillains in the tanning salon, along with their robot. They dematerialized your clones before I captured the Botanist here.”

Brandy jabbed my mom with the plasma gun.

“Don’t hurt her—please!” Dad wasn’t the best actor, but his fear sounded real enough.

“It was too dangerous to leave them in the salon,” Brandy said. “So I triggered the alarm and brought them here. We’ll wait and see what the boss wants to do when he arrives.”

Multiplier stared at us for a moment longer before he finally found his voice. “Y-you can’t possibly be here,” he stuttered. “You’re over there.”

He pointed across the room at the holding cell. From behind the clear wall, Gavin looked pretty surprised to see himself standing in the doorway. Then recognition passed over his features.

“Brandy!” His voice was muffled behind the wall of the cell, but his anger was clear enough. “She must’ve come back and Shifted to look like me.”

“Don’t listen to that imposter!” Brandy-Gavin said. “She tied me up, faked her disappearance, and has been impersonating me ever since.”

“Nonsense!” The real Gavin pounded against the clear wall of the holding cell.

“She was sick of taking orders. She wanted to lead the group. So she took my place.”

Multiplier glanced back and forth from one Gavin to the other, looking more frazzled by the second.

“I’ll prove that I’m the real Gavin,” Brandy-Gavin said next to me. “Only I know about how we’ve been working together with Phineas Vex the whole time. Stealing the Liberty Bell was really just a ploy to capture the Nameless Hero.”

“She’s lying!” Gavin shouted. “
I’m
the one who arranged everything with Phineas Vex! I’m the real G—”

Gavin slapped a hand over his mouth before he could blurt out anything else. But he’d said enough already. It no longer mattered which one was real—they’d both just admitted that they’d been lying to us the whole time.

With Multiplier distracted, Dad stepped forward and karate-chopped the plasma gun out of his hand. Mom
grabbed hold of Multiplier’s arm and twisted it until he fell to his knees.

“Baaaad guy fell dowwwwwn!” Elliot hopped from side to side, his eyes glowing excitedly.

Now that Multiplier had been disarmed and was groaning on the floor, Brandy-Gavin began to Shift. His stomach shrank while his limbs grew. Auburn hair sprouted from his bald head. The stubble faded from his face. A moment later, Brandy was standing in front of me.

“Okay, I admit it,” she said. “
He’s
the real Gavin.”

“Glad we’ve cleared
that
up.” Trace turned on Gavin, his hands clenched into fists. “So you’ve been working with Vex, huh? Were you ever planning to tell me this little piece of info?”

Milton looked just as angry. “You were going to hand my best friend over to Phineas Vex?”

“How
could
you?” Sophie asked through gritted teeth.

“Everybody just calm down.…” Gavin staggered backward until he was up against the wall. “I can explain.”

“I think you’ve done enough explaining already,” Miranda said.

“This was the only way I could—could start the Alliance,” Gavin stammered. “After what happened with the X-Treme Team, nobody would finance a new group. Then Vex came along. He offered to pay for everything. A state-of-the-art facility, uniforms, equipment. All I had to do was bring him Joshua Dread. He said he wouldn’t hurt the boy. Said he needed him for something else.”

“For what?” I stepped forward, glaring through the clear
divider between Gavin and me. “What did Vex want with me?”

“I d-don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me. I tried to convince him to leave you out of it—”

“Sure you did,” Brandy scoffed. “
After
the Nameless Hero became famous.”

“Fine, I confess—I saw an opportunity for you! For all of us! Is that such a bad thing? I thought I could protect you by moving you out of headquarters—away from him. At least until he sent those blasted scorpions.”

“So they
were
from Vex!” I said.

Gavin nodded, frowning. “I couldn’t say so at the time, but yeah—those robots were a message. Vex’s way of saying, ‘You can run, but you can’t hide.’ ”

“In one of the surveillance videos, Vex said something about taking a new form,” Mom said. “What was he talking about?”

Gavin’s shoulders slumped, and he let out a heavy sigh. “These headquarters were never intended for training superheroes. Vex started building this place a year ago. He was going to use it as his secret lair. But after nearly dying, his plans changed. He was confined to a single room.”