Not Your Villain (Sidekick Squad #2)(30)

“Are you okay?” he gasps.

“Your hair is on fire.”

The acrid smell comes from his own burnt hair, falling out in dead, useless pieces, losing its bright color as it hits the ground.

“It’s fine; it’s just hair.” He grabs what’s left of the coffee table and pulls it over them as a shield. Genevieve falters as her power fades; sweat beads on her brow, and every time she lifts something it seems to take more effort.

The room is a blur of shattered glass and crumbling walls, of punches and thudding bodies.

Bells throws his arms over Emma protectively, wishing he could do more in this moment.

“The tantalum! Now!” Genevieve shouts out.

In the sudden quiet, Bells hazards a look. The living room is destroyed, but Orion has been restrained in the cuffs. She doesn’t look at all defeated, just angry.

“You have no idea what’s in store for you now; things have already been set in motion,” Orion taunts.

Bells still has the datachip in his pocket with the video of Orion talking about her experiments. Without either Abby’s or her dad’s powers, they can’t do a nationwide broadcast on every single DED as they planned, but they can do something. They can start.

Abby plugs the chip into a console, and the data is gone, sent into the Net. But before Bells can suggest taking Orion herself to the authorities, or getting her to confess during a live broadcast, Claudia shows up at full strength and whisks her away. “Good luck being villains,” Claudia says, shooting them all satisfied smirks.

Bells laughs; they have all the evidence. It’s Orion who’s going to be revealed as a villain as that holovid makes its rounds across the Net.

But things don’t quite go according to plan.





Part 2: Get Set





Ch. 6...





The first wave of news is expected. Chameleon’s betrayal of the League bombards every channel, every billboard holo, every individual DED. Every citizen in the Collective has seen the same seamlessly edited video of an aggressive Barry Carmichael during training and Chameleon in his rainbow-hued bodysuit with Wilton Lysander’s voiceover warning everyone that Chameleon is dangerous and not to be approached.

Bells tries to take this in stride, tries to laugh at the new names people are giving him on the news, and jokes about “The Heinous Chameleon” with his friends. It’ll be over soon enough, once people realize Orion has been kidnapping villains and experimenting on them.

But the next day, they can’t find the holovid on the Net. No one is talking about it, not even in the conspiracy forums.

“I know there was something here.” Jess frowns as she scrolls through several windows on her DED. “There was a whole thread of people discussing it… but it’s gone.”

They try once more. Jess also writes a succinct but clear article about the staged hero-villain battles and explains how the League is corrupt, but all of that and any clips of the holovid are removed within an hour of posting. The next time they post, the material is gone in twenty minutes, and then five.

From the tinted windows of Emma’s car, they stare at the ruins of the Jones house, where they’ve just tried uploading the data again from Abby’s old console. Grey-suited officials of the Collective Authority are walking the perimeter, talking into their DEDs.

“The League is on the lookout for whoever is trying to upload our information,” Emma muses. “What if we staggered posts from various public locations?”

Bells shakes his head. The last thing they need is all of them in Corrections. Having his hero name dragged through the mud is bad enough; he doesn’t want any of his friends to get caught.

Jess is on a vidcall with her mom, arguing in snippets of mixed Chinese and English. “My mom says we gotta cool it,” Jess says.

Li Hua waves at them from the holo, and then the camera shifts.

Abby looks over her shoulder. “Oh, is she still at the new house?”

Jess nods, expanding the holo to show the nearly completed structure deep within the canyons in the Unmaintained zone: Genevieve and Abby’s new home. Flickering in the vid is her mom lifting a huge boulder as Genevieve floats structural beams into place.

“So cool,” Emma says, peering into the video. “Hi, Mrs. Tran!”

The video shifts to reveal Victor’s face. “You kids shouldn’t have to worry about all this. I know you’re upset that the video isn’t being viewed, but we’re working on a solution. Just focus on your schoolwork and don’t draw attention to yourselves.”

“Okay, Dad,” Jess says, rolling her eyes and ending the call.

Focus on school. How can they, when they need to get this information out there?

At last the Collective Authority team leaves and they can enter the remains of Abby’s house. Abby’s computer console is intact, gleaming in the remains of the living room.

“How about we try one more time with the video?” Bells suggests. “And then we get out of here before they come back.”

Abby lifts her eyebrows. “We gotta go quick, though. They could be back any minute.”

Emma grins, pulls her sunglasses down on her nose and turns on the car; its engine hums to life. “I’ve got this.”

One last upload and a quick getaway in Emma’s car, and they’re giddy with excitement. This time, this time, it’s going to stick.