The Rise of Renegade X (5 page)

I do, and I’m not impressed. He’d better not be my father. Not that I can picture Mom losing her cool for this guy, even in a moment of misguided passion, but I could say that for any superhero, so it’s kind of a moot point.

“I know you think you’re better than everyone else in the park. Otherwise, you’d clean up that mess!” I point at the poop again, waving wildly and raising my voice. He humors me by turning to look, and as soon as he does, I reach over and snag a loose hair from his coat. I hope it’s his and not one of the dogs’, but it’s gray like his and looks longer than any of their fur.

I’m not quick enough, and the Gallant Gentleman catches me in the act. He whirls around, sucking in a deep, horrified breath, and grips his riding crop in shock that I actually touched him. Or that I stole a DNA sample, which is kind of serious business in a town with so many villains looking to do in their “local heroes.” Of course, at this point in his career, he’d be
lucky
if a supervillain took him seriously enough to want to mess with him.

I hold on to the hair sample for dear life, not caring that I’ve been caught. He looks at me holding the hair between two gloved fingers. Then he scowls and looks to the dogs, who are now growling at me. I don’t need any superpowers to know what’s coming next, so I turn and run.

One rip in my pant leg—these were new jeans, too—and a lot of strenuous exercise later, and I’m on to contestant number two. The Forensic Avenger is hosting a Junior Forensic Team meeting at the Golden City Public Library. I’m a little old for it, since the other kids here are all under twelve, but I’m so enthusiastic about forensics that none of the parents or librarians have the heart to tell me I shouldn’t be here.

Today is a stressful day, let me tell you. Investigating the Gallant Gentleman—a.k.a. Mr. Snobby Pants—and getting chased across the park by his pack of dogs, who are probably specially trained to sniff out supervillains, really wore me out. And now I’m here, sitting cross-legged with a bunch of children on the scratchy library carpet, pretending to
loooove
detective work, all so I can find out which one of these guys did it with my mom and ruined my life.

The Forensic Avenger is dressed like Sherlock Holmes, with the hat and everything. He holds up a magnifying glass. “Who can tell me what this is?”

My hand shoots up in the air. “Oh,
me!
I know! Pick me!”

He smiles—a genuinely nice smile—but goes with someone younger. I guess as a first-time participant in the group, I can’t expect special treatment.

I hate myself for thinking this, but I really hope it’s this guy. He has to be better than the Gallant Gentleman, who hated me the second he saw me. And I haven’t met the Crimson Flash yet, but I know he’s a loser because I’ve seen him on TV. He has his own show where he teaches kids how to safely cross the street and stuff. I watch it sometimes at Kat’s house. We think it’s hilarious. So out of the three, the Forensic Avenger is looking the least crappy.

And as for his power, you know how investigators shine black lights onto stuff, to look for body fluids? Yeah, well, he can see that without the black light. Which makes him perfect for forensic work. I don’t think I want his ability, but at least he doesn’t wear a fox-hunting outfit or sic dogs on me.

“Suzy?” the Forensic Avenger says, pointing at a little girl in the front row.

She’s really quiet, suddenly not sure she wants to say anything, and in a very tiny voice manages to mumble, “Magnifying glass.”

“Very good!” He claps his hands for her, and the rest of the group joins in. I almost forget to fake my enthusiasm and have to kick my clapping up a notch or else risk looking like I don’t value little Suzy’s cleverness.

“Forensics is all about finding clues that might normally go unseen,” the Forensic Avenger says while a librarian passes out magnifying glasses to everyone. “So let’s take a minute to see what we can discover right here in this room.”

I bet with his power, he knows all sorts of stuff about this room. Like how many kids have wet themselves.

I accept my magnifying glass with a smile, though even my fake enthusiasm is waning. I just want to get this over with and go home. I hate to call it quits with only two samples, but I’ll catch the Crimson Flash tomorrow morning, when he’s out filming his show.

“What’s this?” I say as I pluck a hair from the brim of the Forensic Avenger’s Sherlock Holmes hat.

He doesn’t seem worried that I have his DNA. Maybe because I’m sixteen and joining a kids’ group, seemingly without noticing I don’t belong. Maybe he thinks I’m a little slow or genuinely that interested.

The Forensic Avenger laughs. “You’re really crazy about this stuff, huh?”

My mind blanks, since I hadn’t expected him to speak to me. “Uh, yeah. I’m especially interested in fingerprinting.”

He scratches the back of his ear. “You know, I have a class at the community college that might be more suited for you. How old are you?”

“I just turned sixteen.” I wait for that to ring any bells, like maybe he’ll go, “Huh, that’s funny, sixteen years and nine months ago, I did it with some woman in the subway bathroom. Boy was
that
place disgusting.”

“You might be old enough, if your school supports taking college classes in high school.”

High school. Right. I’ve heard of that, and it doesn’t sound pleasant. “I’m homeschooled. But, um, thanks anyway.”

“This group is really for the kids.” He looks sort of guilty when he says, “You’re not going to get anything out of it.” He pauses, then digs through his bag of props and pulls out a brochure about going into detective work. “Here. I’ll trade you.” He offers me the brochure while holding out his free hand for the magnifying glass.

I make the trade, not caring that he’s oh-so-subtly kicking me out of the group. I got my sample, and that means my detective work is over for the day.

I intended to go home, but then I remembered Mom’s pissed at me for “breaking” her stupid whatsit device. I say “breaking” because I don’t buy that it worked in the first place. But instead of getting chewed out, I opt for a detour to Kat’s house.

Kat lives in a two-story, three-bedroom house with a white picket fence. Walking by, you’d have no idea the people who live here and keep their lawn trimmed and their roses pruned and their music quiet after dark are actually supervillains. Kat’s dad has some kind of superpower that lets him commune with machines, or at least know when and how they need fixing. He could have used his ability to repair tractors or something, but instead he used it to start a tech business. He’s the CEO of Wilson Enterprises, a computer company with good stock options and about a hundred million slaves—I mean, factory workers—under its thumb. Her mom is his secretary. They started the business together a little while after Kat was born, and it’s only in recent years that it’s really taken off. Their products are pretty good, if you don’t mind your CPU sending out mind-control signals, telling you to buy more Wilson Enterprises merchandise. As a bonus, it waits until the computer is in energy-saving mode, so it doesn’t use up all your processing power while you’re playing games. Or, you know, working.

“Did you get your hair trimmed?” I ask Kat’s mom as she shows me in. “It looks very … modern. And high-tech.”

She fluffs the bottom of her shoulder-length ’do, her whole face lighting up. “Why, thank you, Damien. I didn’t expect anyone to notice.”

I make my way up the staircase to Kat’s room, keeping close to the wall and not looking down. I’m always torn between keeping to the inside of the stairs, where there’s less chance of falling over the edge—but where you have nothing to hold on to if you slip—and gripping the railing for dear life and taking the risk. So far, I’ve always chosen the wall. Even if I’m terrified of slipping, railing can break at any moment; you can’t trust it.

“Damien!” Kat shouts from the top of the stairs. She sounds excited to see me. “Come on, get up here! Show some hustle!”

I pretend to be distracted by the painting on the wall of Kat’s notorious grandfather, Bart the Blacksmith, as if
that’s
the reason I’m slow getting up the stairs, even though I know I’m not fooling anyone. Kat’s known about my phobia for over a year and a half. “I think you should move your room to the first floor. The guest room’s a lot bigger than yours. You’re sixteen now—you deserve some respect.”

She tromps down the five steps I have left and grabs my arm. “It’s only stairs, Damien. Lots of people have them. And you know what? They go up and down them every day, and
nothing happens.”

I jerk my arm back, like I’m offended she tried to help me. Really I don’t want her getting careless and making us both fall.

“Keep your door open, honey!” Mrs. Wilson calls from downstairs. “You know what your father said!”

“Yes, Mom!” Kat rolls her eyes. She slides her octopus statue as close to the edge of the doorframe as possible, so that the door’s open just a crack, obeying only as much as she has to. Kat had a real octopus for a while, and when it died she got this foot-tall stone replica in its honor.

I’m still wearing my new gloves, by the way. If she saw my X, she’d know about my dad. I haven’t even figured out who he is yet, let alone how I’m going to tell Kat—
if
I tell Kat instead of finding a hole to crawl in and die so I’ll never have to see anyone again. It’s a tough decision.

Kat has pink streaks in her hair today. She bounces down on her bed, a frilly purple canopy. She doesn’t even pretend it’s leftover from when she was a kid. They couldn’t have afforded one then, plus I was with her when she picked it out at the store last year.

“Here’s your phone, before I forget.” She grabs it from the nightstand and tosses it to me.

“Thanks.” I lie down on the floor and stretch out, resting my arms behind my head. Her ceiling is covered in thick spackle. She has a poster of Falling Super Pants, the all-supervillain emo boy band. All five of them have their shirts off and seem to have walked into a fountain without realizing it. They’re standing around in the middle of it, getting sprayed by the water and shrugging and laughing. And holding sci-fi-looking rayguns. Their expressions say:
Wow, how’d we get here? I don’t know, but let’s splash each other some more!
They are all, how you say … more “finely toned” than me. Some might even use the term “rippling.” I shake my head. “Falling Super Pants?”

Kat glances up at the ceiling and gasps, like she forgot that was up there. Her face turns pink.
“So?
You’ve only heard the one song they play on the radio all the time, ‘Poisoned Lipstick in My Heart.’ The rest of the album’s way different.”

I sit up. “You have their whole
album?
Next you’re going to tell me you downloaded all the bonus tracks, too.”

“Whatever.” She throws one of her pillows at my face. “Like you can talk. I know about your Superstar collection.”

Superstar is one of those stupid pop bands made of, like, eight teens who won some contest for a record deal. The ones in the band aren’t actually super, but they dress up like heroes and villains in their videos. I’m ashamed to say I own both their albums and their six singles and listen to them on a regular basis. To my credit, I resisted buying concert tickets when they played last month. Of course, I was completely broke at the time, but I guess I could have borrowed the money from Mom. And maybe the real reason I didn’t go wasn’t the money, but because I’d have wanted to take Kat with me, and taking her to a concert would be kind of like a date. And asking Kat out on a date would be kind of like getting back together. Which we’re not, even if we spend all our time together and are closer than we ever were when we were actually going out.

Here’s how I see it. I might secretly still have a thing for Kat, but as long as we’re not technically together, she can’t cheat on me. If she takes up with someone else, it’s not like we’re dating, so it’s not like she can break my heart or make me feel like crap. At least in theory. But if we go out? Then I couldn’t help but take it personally if she chose someone else over me again.