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Chapter 1: A Simple Plan
Amanda Worthington stepped into her cubicle at Pry Magazine, and stared in horror at the harbinger of doom on her desk. This particular harbinger of doom was a small pink piece of paper with the heading “A Message For You” at the top. Not as menacing as the monster Feroctopus, perhaps, or the evil Lord Octium, both of whom the superhero Captain Sunray battled on a regular basis. Indeed, most people wouldn’t even have recognized it as a harbinger of doom.
But Amanda was no ordinary person.
She was the editor of the Superhero Snoop section in every issue of Pry, and she knew a harbinger of doom when she saw one. This seemingly innocent pink piece of paper was, in reality, the single domino whose fall would trigger a whole avalanche of terrible consequences for her, including disgrace, shame, and humiliation. And Amanda wanted no part of disgrace, shame, or humiliation.
She was funny that way.
On the small pink paper, one of the administrative assistants had scribbled the chilling words, “Genevieve called. Uncle Max sick. Vacation off. Interview cancelled.”
Amanda reeled. No interview meant no story. No story meant losing her job. And losing her job meant facing the I-told-you-so faces of Father and Mother. Feroctopus and Lord Octium were bunnies and butterflies by comparison.
Amanda sank down onto her chair like a deflating party balloon.
So, this is it. My golden plans for a soaring career in journalism, snuffed out by a carnival magician’s assistant standing me up for an interview.
She didn’t even bother trying to straighten out the mixed metaphors. What was the point? It was all so pathetic.
No Worthington had ever even needed a job before, never mind been fired from one. Her family was brimming with money, and always had brimmed with money, thanks to Father’s many business enterprises. There was no need for her to work, ever. She could simply exist beautifully, with her ballet and her horseback riding, until she married a boy of the right sort, from a family of the right sort, with an investment portfolio of the right sort, who would exist beautifully alongside her.
Her four years at Yale were supposed to be simply a bridge between private high school and marriage. She certainly hadn’t been expected to learn anything at college, much less become captivated by journalism, of all things. Then, after graduating, she had further dumbfounded Father and Mother by actually landing a job — and with Pry, surely the most lurid of the tabloids found in every supermarket checkout line in America. Luckily, no one in Amanda’s family had ever set foot in a supermarket, so she’d felt safe in describing Pry to them as, “You know, that weekly newsmagazine.”
Despite this deception, their response to her news had been an absolute bombshell. “If you continue to insist on this ridiculous pursuit of common employment, you cannot expect additional subsidies from us.” She couldn’t even recall which of them had said this. But the meaning was clear: if she took this job, she was cut off. No more Visa without a limit. No more automatic payment of rent, phone, cable, utilities, and all the rest. No more deposits with lots of zeroes every month.
She was on her own.
Gulp.
Amanda’s impatient boss at Superhero Snoop, Edith Frankel, wasn’t helping matters, either. “We hired you for one reason: investigative reporting. Tearing down the supes façade. Digging up the dirt. Putting two and two together. Figuring them out.”
And by “figuring them out”, Frankel meant: Who were the supes, really? Where did they come from? What did they do when they weren’t fighting crime and saving lives? And, most important, who were they behind the masks?
Frankel had been harping on this since day one. It was now day forty-six, and her harping was only getting louder.
Oh, Amanda had tried. Most of the supes did, in fact, wear masks, so she’d spent countless hours examining their chins and foreheads, trying to match them to photos from Pry’s vast database: dead end.
Most of them stayed close to one particular city — Captain Sunray near Washington DC, for example, and TripLiCate near Dallas — so she’d painstakingly mapped every confirmed sighting, trying to zero in on a job or a home or even a neighborhood: dead end.
As for her latest idea: well, she’d had such hopes. What happened to superheroes after they retired, eventually hanging up the cape and mask for good? Specifically: what if they retired, but kept using their powers? Take Spectrum, that supe who could see through walls. Sure, he was a young guy now, but when he did eventually retire from crime-fighting, wouldn’t it make sense for him to still utilize his powers? Maybe performing medical exams? Or scanning suitcases at the airport? Or finding lost keys?
She even thought that she’d found such a super retiree. Professor Mesmer, one of the older generation of heroes, had quietly moved out of the public eye over a decade ago, taking his amazing mental powers with him. But Amanda had recently come across an elderly carnival performer — The Amazing Mezmo — whose specialty was: mind-reading tricks. He lived in Wisconsin with his niece, Genevieve, who acted as his onstage assistant.
Amanda had been playing up this possibility to Edith Frankel for weeks. If The Amazing Mezmo really was Professor Mesmer, he could be the link to dozens of other supes, both retired and active. The foot in the door, the thin edge of the wedge.
Of course, interviewing The Amazing Mezmo himself was out of the question: he would see through her immediately. Mind-readers were tough to fool.
But if Amanda could interview his niece Genevieve, well, she was sure that she could figure out whether her theory was true. Even if Genevieve herself didn’t know that her Uncle Max had once been Professor Mesmer, Amanda was confident that she could unearth enough circumstantial evidence to create a compelling article.
Up until now, Genevieve had been willing — even eager — to be interviewed. She seemed to believe that Pry was interested only in publicizing her uncle’s mind-reading act, and she welcomed the free advertising. Amanda had carefully arranged to interview her while her Uncle Max was supposed to be away on a vacation.
Now, this disastrous phone message.
Uncle Max was sick, his vacation was off, and Genevieve had cancelled the interview that had been Amanda’s last hope. Amanda now feared that this setback would be the last straw. She would lose her job and, far worse, would have to admit her failure to Mother and Father, and slink home to one of the family mansions in disgrace.
They couldn’t kick me out forever, could they?
Could they?
Gulp.
Amanda decided to do the honorable and professional thing: call Genevieve back and beg like a dog for bacon.
“Nah, I’m sorry,” Genevieve replied to her entreaties, “right now’s not a good time.”
“Oh, of course, I completely understand that, but I wondered — ”
“Yeah, Uncle Max was all broke up about not getting to go. Wanting to get together with his old friends and such.”
“Sure. Uh huh.” Wait! Old friends? Of a retired supe? Who else could they be but supes themselves? Amanda’s mind transitioned in a flash from sympathizing confidante to dedicated researcher. “And who would these old friends be?”
“I don’t really know,” Genevieve said. “He’s a funny old guy, real mysterious about his past. People he used to hang out with, I guess.”
Amanda could hardly breathe.
Mental powers. Mysterious about his past. Meeting with old friends.
I just have to get this interview!
“Genevieve, that is so fascinating. Let’s just reschedule that interview, okay, so that we can — ”
“Right now ain’t so great, with Uncle Max feeling so lousy.”
“Sure. Of course. How about — ”
“And then, when he’s better, we might go to Vegas for an audition. Imagine that! We could get a long-term gig there …”
Amanda tried derailing her from Vegas. “I see, so maybe — ”
“A lot more fun than Rhode Island, right?”
Amanda stopped, confused. Genevieve and her Uncle lived in Wisconsin. “Rhode Island?” she asked.
“Where he was going for vacation. Listen, I gotta run. Sounds like he’s barfing again. Sorry. Buh-bye.”
“But — but — ”
Amanda heard the line — and her career — go dead, then hung up wearily.
Did I really give it my best shot? Should I have promised an article promoting Uncle Max’s act?
She winced. Blatant lying didn’t come easily to her, especially when in pursuit of The Truth. She’d done the best she could. But the result was the same as making no attempt at all: she had nothing.
Amanda automatically jotted down notes on a pad, delaying the moment when she would have to confess her failure to Edith Frankel. Professor Mesmer. The Amazing Mezmo. Max. Wisconsin. Vegas. Rhode Island. Vacation.
Why am I doing this? It’s over. No notes would help me now.
She sighed, tore off the page, and wadded it into a ball. Her hand was half-raised to toss it into the recycle bin when she stopped, her clenched fist held aloft. A gaggle of thoughts collided in her head.
What if Uncle Max’s old friends really were supes?
What if they were all getting together anyway, even without Professor Mesmer?
Where could they be meeting?
She opened her hand, peeled open the crumpled paper, and stared at two words she’d just written. Then she swung to her laptop and began typing as furiously as a thousand monkeys trying to pound out a draft of Hamlet. She stared at the results of her online search, sighed at the number of hotels there were in Rhode Island, and then thanked the merciful heavens that Uncle Max’s vacation hadn’t been planned for California.
She picked up her phone, glanced at the first number in the list, and began dialing.
“Hi, this is Genevieve Moscowitz,” Amanda said, mentally wincing. “I’m calling about a cancelled reservation for my Uncle Max?”
“Hi, I’m calling…”
“Hi, I’m…”
“This is…”
“I’m…”
“Yes, we were so sorry to hear he wasn’t feeling well.”
Amanda jerked up in her chair and stared at her list of hotel names: Fairwater Farm. A bed and breakfast in someplace called Kingstown, Rhode Island.
Now what?
“Um, thank you,” Amanda said. “I was wondering whether I might be able to attend, even if my Uncle Max can’t. He so wanted me to meet his old friends.”
Well, not so much me, as the real Genevieve, but if I’m acting as Genevieve, then maybe that does mean me.
She crossed her fingers, her toes, and her eyes.
“I’ll have to check with Mr. Braccio,” the helpful female voice said. “Could you please hold?”
“Certainly.”
Oh, please please please! Please please please please please!
After a one-minute eon, a new voice, deep and male, with an Italian accent, said, “Genevieve? Carlo Braccio here. You probably do not remember me — an old friend of Max?”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Braccio,” she found herself saying. “He talks about you all the time.”
At least, he probably does. To the real Genevieve.
“I am just curious if you are carrying on in the family tradition. Max never mentioned your own — talents.”
Amanda stared.
Family tradition? Talents?
A shiver slid down her spine. He meant super powers. She was right! Her heart began to pound.
“Well, I think so,” she faltered. “I mean, I’m just beginning to learn about my — my talents. It’s so hard to be sure. I’m certainly nothing like Uncle Max.”
“Well, we would all love to meet you. And one of our friends could give you some pointers, maybe.”
Our friends: other supes!
Scarcely able to breathe, Amanda said, “That would be wonderful, Mr. Braccio. You can’t imagine what this would mean to me.”
“Then we will see you this weekend.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you so much.”
She hung up. Her mind was a blender-frapped whirl of astonishment and curiosity.
It’s real. It’s all real. Supes. Vacationing at Fairwater Farm. In Rhode Island. Who knows who’ll be there? Spectrum? Puma? Queen Midas?
She gulped.
Captain Sunray himself?
She stood and began bouncing randomly around her cubicle like a drunk kangaroo, picking up and setting down objects on her desk.
Chance of a lifetime! Have to play it cool. Read up on Max. And Genevieve. My God, can I pull this off? Can’t take my driver’s license. Nothing with my real name. No credit cards: I’ll need all cash. And a camera. One of those tiny ones hidden in a pen.
Wait. Wait one second.
She took and released a breath.
Am I really going to trick these people, these heroes? Deceive them into thinking I’m a friend, part of their group? All to save my job? Just to get a lousy story?
Wait again. Not a lousy story. The story of the century. A story no one else could get, but somehow it’s dropped right into my lap.
As if it’s meant to be.
As if I’m supposed to do this.
Fate.
Destiny.
Providence.
Which, she recalled, was the capital of Rhode Island.
If that wasn’t a sign from above, what was?
When she could trust herself to walk straight, she strode down the hall, knocked on Edith Frankel’s open door, and casually said, “So, I’ve got a new lead on this supe story…”
[End of excerpt: You know, maybe you’d better buy the book …]
Now available!
• As an e-book! Read on your Kindle, or download to read on your computer or tablet!
• As a paperback! An actual book with pages and ink!