The Accidental Hero Read online

  The door swung open and a SmartCam flew into the room. Jazen frowned.

  “PRESENTING CIRCLEMAN JONAS SMART!” the SmartCam announced, introducing a tall, gaunt man with a grim face, sunken cheeks, and dark circles under his eyes. He had unusually long fingers and black hair that was graying at the temples. His black one-piece suit made him look like a walking shadow, and his mood was no brighter. Jack wasn’t so excited about meeting this man anymore.

  “Hello, Jonas,” Jazen said, nodding a cold greeting to the Circleman.

  “Emissary Knight,” Smart replied with the same lack of warmth.

  Smart took in the room slowly, rolling his eyes from left to right, and eventually settled on Jack. The look on his face sent shivers down Jack’s spine. Smart leaned down to Jack’s eye level and studied him with narrow, penetrating eyes, scrutinizing his face from several different angles.

  “This is quite alarming, Emissary Knight,” Smart began. His voice rang with a deep, rich resonance, like the sound of a purring cat. “I always assumed that sooner or later you would attempt to challenge our informal border control policy, but I never once imagined that you would attempt to smuggle in a Rüstov spy.”

  Jack took offense at that. “I’m not a Rüstov spelughh—” Smart interrupted Jack by sticking a tongue depressor into his mouth. He held it open and shined a penlight inside to look around. Jack fidgeted as Smart moved on to his eyes, holding the lids open and shining the light into each pupil.

  “He’s not a spy,” Jazen said, taking away Smart’s pen-light and pulling Jack free of his clutches.

  “But he is infected,” Smart countered.

  “Not a chance,” Blue said.

  “See for yourself,” Smart said. He took out a pocket holo-computer and projected a lab report on Jack’s blood into the air. “The blood tests are quite conclusive.”

  Jack watched with his heart in his throat as Jazen crossed the room toward the holographic report and studied it for what felt like forever. Finally, Jazen turned to him with a defeated look on his face.

  “I’m sorry, Jack” was all Jazen could muster.

  “You’re infected with a Rüstov parasite,” Smart added without feeling. “I’m afraid there’s no cure.”

  All the color drained from Jack’s face. His stomach went cold, like he had just swallowed a freezer full of ice. His mind reeled, and somewhere in the back of his brain, he started wondering just what ended up happening to Prime in the missing pages of Unreal Tales #42.

  “What does that mean, no cure?” Jack asked, frantic. “Am I going to die? Am I going to turn into a Rüstov? How much time do I have?”

  “Very little, if I can help it,” Smart replied. “Speedrazor, if you don’t mind?” Speedrazor smiled, bared his claws, and started toward Jack.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa… not so fast, psycho,” Jazen said to Speedrazor, stepping in front of Jack. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Smart looked surprised at Jazen’s challenge, but he didn’t miss a beat in responding to it. “The law is very clear on dealing with the Rüstov. Distasteful though it may be, the infected branch must be cut away before it endangers the tree. I don’t know why you think this boy should receive special consideration.”

  “Open your eyes!” Jazen shouted. “It’s obvious Jack is a special case. Infected or not, he doesn’t even have the mark of the Rüstov on his eye. You know that whenever the Rüstov infect a new host body, that mark is the first thing to appear. Jack doesn’t show any signs of decay at all!”

  “The boy is quite a find, I can’t argue with you there,” Smart admitted. “His infection almost appears to be in complete remission.”

  “He might even hold the key to a cure!” Jazen said. “He could be the answer to defeating the Rüstov!”

  “Yes, the boy promises to be extremely valuable to my work,” Smart agreed. “There’s no denying that.”

  Jack breathed a sigh of relief.

  “After he is executed, I’m going to want him brought immediately to my lab. He needs to be dissected and studied extensively.”

  Jack’s relief quickly evaporated.

  “Executed?” Jazen asked.

  “Dissected?” Jack added, his eyes bulging out of their sockets.

  “Extensively?” Blue said.

  “You can’t have him executed!” Jazen told Smart.

  Smart sighed. “Emissary Knight. Where there is one Rüstov today, there will be a hundred tomorrow,” he replied coldly. “When the parasite is done with him, others will be next. It’s elementary. Perhaps I should have said ‘put to sleep’? Would that have been more sensitive? I’m afraid I’m not very good at emotional expressions.”

  “It doesn’t matter how you say it!” Jack shouted. “What are you, crazy?”

  Smart rolled his eyes. “What I am is the smartest living person on planet Earth. If my decisions confuse you, it is simply because you aren’t smart enough to understand them. Now please, adults are talking.”

  “I won’t let you do this, Jonas,” Jazen said. “This is a child under my protection.”

  “Yeah, I have rights!” Jack said. He paused to look at Jazen. “I do have rights, don’t I?”

  “No,” Smart scoffed. “As far as the law is concerned, you died the second the infection took hold. You’re an enemy combatant. You have no rights.”

  “He’s a citizen of the Imagine Nation!” Jazen said. “Check his record.”

  “I have—it’s worthless,” Smart replied. He used his pocket computer to project Jack’s birth certificate into the air. Sure enough, the form appeared, but it was just scrambled letters and meaningless gibberish. “It’s your fault, you know. When you ran his DNA scan, the nanites in his blood corrupted the file with the Rüstov technovirus. It’s frozen. Useless. We had to sever the infected file from the system so the virus didn’t spread to the entire SmartCorp database. This child has neither a past nor a future.”

  Jack grabbed the tangital image from the air to get a closer look. Smart was right—the file was ruined.

  “You’re a heartless jerk,” Jazen said.

  “I’m quite comfortable with who I am, Emissary Knight. The Imagine Nation is at war,” Smart declared. “We must remain ever vigilant against our foe. I’d execute a thousand children like him if I thought it would keep us safe.”

  “The Imagine Nation is a democracy,” Jazen countered.

  “The entire Inner Circle has to vote on this, not just you.”

  Smart scowled. “Have a care, Emissary,” he told Jazen. “It isn’t prudent for a Mecha to side with a Rüstov. There’s a little too much history there, I should think.”

  “I’ll take my chances. And so will Jack.”

  “Have it your way.” The Circleman snorted. “It won’t change anything. The law is very clear on this, and I haven’t lost a vote at the Inner Circle since being elected nearly twelve years ago.”

  “You mean, you haven’t lost a vote since Stendeval disappeared twelve years ago,” Jazen said. “I’m calling for a full circle vote. As an official in the Empire City Police Department, Blue here is a witness to that. The entire Circle will be here tomorrow for Dedication Day. You’re going to have to wait at least that long.”

  Smart grinned a sickening grin. “Fine—we’ll finish this in the sphere,” he said, then turned to Jack. “This is a stay of execution, nothing more,” he said in a frigid tone. “Until tomorrow. I’ll be waiting.” He angled a long finger up to the floating SmartCam. “And I’ll be watching.”

  Smart left the room without another word. The Peacemakers followed him out.

  “Wow,” Blue said. “That went well.”

  Jazen looked away, embarrassed. Jack looked up at the SmartCam that was hovering over him, recording and broadcasting his every move. “I guess I’d better get used to these things,” he said.

  It turned out Jack was right. The SmartCam followed Jack and the others out to Blue’s HoverCar and up through the ritzy streets of Hightown. It tr
ailed them past energy trains that ran up the sides of buildings, and over highway bridges that crossed between soaring skyscrapers.

  Blue kicked the HoverCar into flight mode and blew the car by NewsNets that were broadcasting footage from the SmartCam on floating billboards. The headlines declared: RÜSTOV SUPERVILLAIN ALLOWED TO STAY IN EMPIRE CITY! NO ONE IS SAFE! Impromptu interviews with Smart and his Peacemakers condemning Jack as a Rüstov threat played on giant floating screens. Everywhere random superpeople flying through the skies, or fighting one another in the streets over who knows what, stopped what they were doing to read and watch the breaking story. Within minutes the entire city knew about Jack’s arrival. He was news. Big news.

  Rocketing away from the SmartCam, Blue pulled the HoverCar up to the 437th floor of the Ivory Tower, an immaculate white building in the center of Hightown. The curved window of Jazen’s apartment slid open outside the car door. Jazen keyed in a sequence on the dashboard, and a holo-platform appeared below the car so they could safely get out. Jack said good night to Blue, who promised to see him in the morning. He told Jack to remember that he and Jazen had his back. Jack thanked him and followed Jazen into the apartment.

  “All right, Jack, this is your new place,” Jazen said. “What’s mine is yours.”

  “Yeah,” Jack said as he trudged into the building and into a posh living room. “For one night at least.” He plopped down on a couch.

  The emissary exhaled with a sympathetic air. It was amazing how well his android systems reproduced every human function and emotion. “It’s been a long day,” Jazen admitted. “I know you haven’t exactly received the warmest welcome, but it’s going to be okay. It really is.”

  Jack wasn’t so sure.

  “You know, back at St. Barnaby’s, I always thought about what it would be like to be a superhero when I grew up,” he said to Jazen. “I didn’t dare say that to Mr. Calhoun, but I did think about it. Then when you told me about this place, and about my superpowers, I started to think about it for real.” Jack shook his head. “I haven’t even been here a full day, and already I’m a supervillain instead.”

  “Hero and villain are both overused words, if you ask me,” Jazen said. “Not all heroes wear capes and masks, Jack. A real hero just wants to make a difference in the world. He gets out of bed in the morning and tries to make the world a better place, that’s all. That’s the kind of hero I try to bring back to the Imagine Nation. That’s why you’re here.”

  “You think I could be that kind of hero?” Jack asked. “Even with the whole Rüstov thing?”

  “I think you could be anything you want,” Jazen said. “Now try to get some sleep. I promise you, we’ll take care of all this tomorrow.”

  Jack agreed that he was exhausted and it was time to call it a day. He was soon off to bed in the guest room that Jazen kept ready for visitors to the Imagine Nation. It was a sparsely furnished room, nothing too extravagant, but far nicer than anything Jack had ever known. He pulled the covers over himself, hoping things really would look better in the morning.

  As the SmartCam bumped up against the window trying futilely to get inside, Jack had mixed feelings about this new home. He was free of St. Barnaby’s. He had his own room in an apartment overlooking a wondrous city of superheroes, aliens, and magic. He should’ve been on top of the world. Sadly, even in a place like this, where nobody in the entire city could be considered remotely normal, Jack still couldn’t fit in. He stared at the picture in his infected history file, quite certain that he’d never find out who he was.

  Jack lay in bed, his energy fading fast, and the lights in the room faded with him. He was so incredibly tired after such a long day, he almost didn’t notice the lights shutting off by themselves. But he did notice, and when he realized what was happening, it got him thinking about the lights in the library that morning. He thought about how he had been feeling when the lights had flared up and blown out. Next, he thought about that day when Rex had stolen his calculator, and how he had been feeling when it had broken. Finally, he thought about how he was feeling right there in that room.

  He was tired, and the lights were going out….

  A completely different kind of lightbulb switched on in Jack’s head. He had it. His mind raced back through the rest of the day’s events and more. Suddenly, it all made sense to him. He felt a burst of excitement, and the lights responded in kind. Just like Jazen had told him. Flare-ups. Jack couldn’t help but smile a little as he drifted off to sleep. It seemed he recognized his superpowers after all.

  CHAPTER

  5

  Dedication Day

  The next morning, Jack awoke to find a man sitting outside his window.

  As if seeing a man sitting outside of a window on the 437th floor wasn’t strange enough, this man appeared to be sitting on the air itself. He had an orange-white glow emanating from his body, and a ring of red energy particles swirling around him. He appeared to be an Indian man and had a clean-shaven head that was decorated with five or six lines of red henna paint on his dark brown skin. The stripes were drawn from the back of his head to the front, running toward a single red dot in the center of his forehead.

  Jack moved over to the window and opened it. The man’s eyes were closed and he was humming gently with his arms outstretched. “Hello?” Jack said. “Can I help you?”

  The man didn’t hear Jack at first. He sat there with his legs folded, humming away. He was barefoot, dressed in loose-fitting bright orange clothing, with a crimson silk belt tied around his waist and a matching red sash slung over his shoulder. He opened his eyes to find Jack staring at him.

  “Oh, hello,” he said, eyeing Jack’s messed-up, mangled morning hair. He had a deep, rich voice. The accent was a mixture of English and Indian, sounding both comforting and wise. “Did my meditations rouse you from your slumber? Forgive me, young friend. That was not my intention.”

  Jack was a bit surprised to receive such a neighborly reaction, but he certainly wasn’t complaining. It was a nice way to start the day after getting off to such a rocky start the night before.

  “It’s okay,” Jack said. He rubbed his head, trying in vain to get a cowlick to lie down. “It was about time for me to get up, anyway. Besides, I’ve never seen anyone meditate four hundred floors up before. That’s kind of cool.”

  “It’s how I welcome each new day,” the man said, looking out on a glorious city morning. “A day such as this should never be wasted, not even for a minute. I trust this morning finds you well?”

  “We’ll see,” Jack said, still slightly wary of each new person he met in Empire City. “You’re not going to start screaming and run away or try to dissect me or anything, are you?”

  The man’s back straightened. “Dissect you? What an odd thing to say,” he replied, somewhat confused. “That also is not my intention.”

  Jack pointed to a billboard that was puttering by with his face stretched across a high-definition screen. The scrolling headlines questioned whether Jack was an evil spy, a supervillain, or both. “Sounds about right to me,” Jack said. “I’m not exactly normal. Even for this place.”

  “Why would you ever want to be normal?” the floating man asked with a laugh. “To try and be normal in Empire City would be abnormal. Normal is boring. Differences inspire. Every now and then, there comes a person so incredibly different that everyone normal wishes they were different in the same exact way.”

  Jack nodded. “I never thought of it like that.”

  “You should try,” the man said, returning to his meditations.

  “Jack? Who are you talking to?”

  Jack turned around to see Jazen standing at the threshold of his door. Before Jack could answer him, there was a flash of light behind him, and he spun back around to find the man in orange was gone. In his place there was only a spinning mass of energy particles shrinking into an ever-tightening spiral until they vanished from sight. Jack shrugged. It was probably nothing out of the ordinary for this pl
ace. Just another day in the city.

  “I don’t know,” Jack said. “No one, I guess.”

  Jazen nodded. “We’ve got a big day ahead of us, Jack. Better get started. How do you feel about breakfast? I’ve got 2.7 million recipes in my memory bank, you know.”

  Jack’s stomach growled. “Breakfast sounds great.”

  Jazen led Jack downstairs to the kitchen, where appliances were already springing to life and preparing an exotic breakfast filled with foods Jack had never seen or even heard of. In the morning light Jack got his first good look at Jazen’s apartment, a spectacular open-air loft space. Throughout the loft, steps were suspended in midair, leading up and down to Anti-Gravity platforms that supported a kitchen, living room, and multiple game rooms on separate floating stages. Everything had a sleek futuristic design—light on the furniture and heavy on glass and steel.

  “This is some place,” Jack told Jazen, ogling the apartment.

  “Perks of the job,” Jazen replied. “Loft space in the Ivory Tower gets rented out at five thousand credits a month, but emissaries get to stay here free of charge. Not bad, huh?” Jazen took a moment to admire the view from the curving windows that lined the walls of the lavish apartment. “Like I said, this is your place too now, so make yourself at home.”

  “I will,” Jack said. “At least until they dissect me, anyway.”

  “Hey,” Jazen said. He walked over to Jack and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “That isn’t going to happen. Everything’s going to be all right, I promise.”

  “You’re probably programmed to say that.”

  Jazen pulled his hand back. “I happen to be self-programmed, just like every other Mecha in this city. I’m a sentient android with free will. I make up my own mind about things, same as you.”

  Jack could tell he’d hit on a sensitive subject. “I’m sorry, Jazen, I didn’t mean anything by that. I’m just really messed up by this whole Rüstov infection thing.”

  “Don’t be,” Jazen said. “You’re going to beat it.”