Amped: A Kid Sensation Companion Novel (2 page)

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Being able to book assignments for me means that my agent has the authority to act and speak for me. Likewise, when Smokey called and asked for my help with that little emergency, he did it at Jim’s request. He was acting on behalf of Jim. So as far as I’m concerned, he spoke with your boyfriend’s voice, and had the power to bind him.”

I couldn’t believe it. This painted Jezebel was trying to use
legalese
to justify her position!

“Look,” I almost hissed, “regardless of agency, binding authority, and any other legal crap, you took advantage of the situation.”

“I admit it, but I also admit that I’m a professional. If your boyfriend had turned me down, do you know what I would have done? The exact same thing. I still would have helped out with that crisis. And if he’s as astute as I’ve heard, then he knows that.”

I clenched my fist and struggled to keep my voice calm and even. “What are you trying to say? That Jim
wants
to go out with you?”

She smiled. “The way I heard it, you’re his first real girlfriend. That being the case, I’m sure he’s” – she seemed to spend a few seconds hunting for the right word – “
grateful
to you for broadening his horizons. And that gratitude probably expresses itself in the form of loyalty – even though, in all honesty, he’d probably prefer to move on. Especially after he’s gotten a
taste
of what else is out there.”

Vestibule puckered her lips slightly, almost as though she was giving an imaginary friend a kiss. Coupled with what she’d just said, it was a blatant reference to the fact that – back during the crisis – she had unexpectedly given Jim a kiss (allegedly for luck). I had worked hard to put the incident (and the imagery) out of my mind, but now it all came roaring back, accompanied by the furious emotional tempest I had felt when it had initially happened.

“Going on a date with me,” Vestibule went on, a smug expression on her face, “is probably just a way for him to see exactly how green the grass is on the other side.”

To my credit, I kept my face passive. I think I may even have smiled. Inside, however, I was seething at what she had just suggested.

Within my still-clenched fist, I started building an electrical charge. Within seconds, I had constructed a white-hot ball of electricity about the size of an acorn, but packing enough juice to jump-start a car. Vestibule was on the verge of getting the shock of her life. Literally.

Fortunately (and surprisingly), common sense prevailed over mounting rage. As satisfying as the thought of roasting Vestibule was, I realized that it would have ranked in the neighborhood of cruel and unusual punishment. Thus, rather than light her up like a Christmas tree, I instead reabsorbed the vast majority of the charge. I then lifted my hand and discharged the remainder into the air above my head, creating a small sound-and-light show as the release of electricity resulted in a bright flash, accompanied by an impressive crackle.

The entire time, I never took my eyes off Vestibule, who jumped with a start at this display of my powers. (Apparently she didn’t have a firm appreciation of what an electrophorus individual – someone who can create electricity, among other things – can do.) She gave me a wide-eyed, deer-in-headlights look as she realized what could have happened, and then she was gone – teleported back home, I assumed.

I smiled, proudly thinking of how that smug little expression had disappeared from her face almost as fast as Vestibule herself had vanished from the room. The feeling of satisfaction, however, was short-lived, as a voiced I’d heard many times, both audibly and mentally, suddenly boomed in my head angrily:

Esper was generally considered the most powerful telepath on the planet and was also the closest thing I had to a mom. Being an orphan, I had been adopted and raised with the entire Alpha League as my legal guardians. The situation was clearly unusual, but seeing as how I was allegedly displaying superpowers from the moment I was discovered as an infant, it seemed like the best possible fit. Still, while the entire League had responsibility for my welfare, it was only natural that one or two of them would come to the fore in terms of being parental figures.

On the paternal side, it was mostly Alpha Prime. One might assume that I fixated on him because – as the world’s greatest superhero – viewing him as a father figure was only natural. The truth, however, was that he was already raising his son Paramount as a single parent, so taking on that role with me was practically second nature to him.

The result, of course, was that Paramount and I had essentially grown up like brother and sister, which had made his eventual fall – he’d cracked under the pressure of living up to his father’s name – that much more difficult to bear. (Thankfully, Paramount had done much to redeem himself recently.) However, my relationship with Alpha Prime had taken something of an awkward turn of late after I found out that my boyfriend Jim was also his son. It was a situation that, in some ways, we were still trying to work the kinks out of.

On the maternal side of the equation, there was – as already noted – Esper. Although not really old enough to be my mother, she took the role seriously, and from day one was primarily the person who did everything for me, from arranging playdates to planning birthday parties to talking me through puberty. Moreover, she had always been fiercely protective of me, although you wouldn’t know it from the way she had mentally screeched at me in the teen lounge. (Apparently Esper had shown up, looking for me, and witnessed the end of my conversation with Vestibule.) Unhappy with what she had seen, Esper had told me in no uncertain terms that we were going home to have a talk.

“Home” for me was a little bit of an ambiguous term. I had spent much of my early years actually residing at League Headquarters, which had a generous amount of space designated as living quarters. In fact, since members of the League’s teen affiliate occasionally had to stay in-residence at HQ for training purposes, I actually had my own room on the premises. In short, for a couple of years now, I’d been able to enjoy having my own space.

That said, due to an attack on the League the previous summer, HQ had had to undergo extensive reconstruction, with the result being that my quarters there were unavailable until very recently. During the interim, I’d mostly been staying with Esper at a home she owned out in the ’burbs – a modest, two-story house in a quiet neighborhood. Most of my friends, including my boyfriend Jim, assumed that I had only started staying there after the attack on HQ, but in truth I’d spent lots of time there while I was growing up. It was one of the places Esper retreated to with me whenever she wanted me to have a taste of “normal” life, and it was here that we headed after my encounter with Vestibule.

As I pulled into the driveway, I absentmindedly hit the remote for the two-car garage, thinking furiously about what I would say to Esper after we got inside. Being a telepath, she wasn’t really someone you could lie to (not that I had planned to do so). With her, it was really going to come down to the spin I could put on the situation.

Once the door was up, I drove inside. Esper, who had followed me from League HQ in her own car, pulled in next to me. Hers was a foreign model – a luxury brand, but not overly expensive. Mine was a used domestic vehicle, probably mid-range on the scale in terms of both cost and appeal.

Although I’d had my license for a while now, the car was a recent gift – something I’d received only within the past few weeks. Upon being given the keys, I had immediately recognized the vehicle for what it was: something to take my mind off Jim’s absence. Nevertheless, despite being something of a bribe, I had happily accepted it.

I hit the remote and then got out of my car as the garage door was descending. I then headed inside, not looking forward to the conversation that was about to unfold.

One would think that, being a telepath, Esper would have opened a dialogue while we were driving. She had nixed that idea, however; it was winter, and she wanted me focused on the road, which was icy in spots. Trying to have a mental conversation under those circumstances was the telepathic equivalent of texting while driving as far as Esper was concerned. And so the talk we were supposed to have had been put on hold until we got home. Once we crossed the threshold, however, Esper’s finger immediately came off the “pause” button.

“What exactly were you trying to prove with that little stunt?” she asked, without preamble. She was clearly upset with me, as evidenced by the fact that she had telepathically shouted my entire name earlier.

“I wasn’t trying to prove anything,” I countered. “Vestibule basically claimed that Jim was only staying with me out of loyalty.”

“And you hurling a lightning bolt into the air was supposed to do what – prove her a liar?”

I didn’t really have a ready response to that, so I just lowered my eyes before softly mumbling, “It wasn’t lightning.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said it wasn’t lightning. It was just a little electrical discharge.”

Esper cocked her head to the side. “Really? You’re going to argue semantics with me?”

“I’m just trying to keep the facts from getting exaggerated.”

“Regardless, you can’t go around threatening to fry people because they say things you don’t like.”

“I didn’t threaten anyone.”

“There was an
implied
threat in what you did.”

“No, what I did was release frustration so that I wouldn’t
have
to make a threat.”

“However you characterize it, do you realize that you were about to get into a tussle over a boy?”

“Jim’s not just some boy,” I rumbled, almost in anger.

She sighed and put a sympathetic hand on my shoulder. “I know that, honey. So don’t you think that means he’s smart enough to avoid a honey trap like Vestibule?”

“Not really. He’s kind of an idiot when it comes to women.”

Esper laughed. “I forgot. He’s never really had a girlfriend before.”

I snickered softly. “And he may not have one for much longer if wrangling with vamps like Vestibule is part of the deal.”

Esper laughed again. “You can handle Vestibule – without sending ten thousand volts through her.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, “but it sure would be a lot more fun.”

Apparently convinced that I wasn’t likely to turn anyone into a human light bulb, Esper changed the subject, but stuck to a somewhat somber topic: proper car of my car.

Basically, if I was going to be driving, she wanted me to understand that there was more to automobile maintenance than just putting gas in the tank. Therefore, she’d had me practically memorize the entire owner’s manual, and had started quizzing me on it about once per week. As a result, I could now quote the manufacturer’s recommended interval for having the oil changed, having a radiator flush-and-fill, and so on. And just to make sure I was taking ownership seriously, I even had to pay my own insurance. (Thankfully, I have a trust fund that I’m allowed to dip into for that purpose.)

“In case you forgot,” I said, as Esper finished testing my knowledge on getting tune-ups, “they made us take auto mechanics during the previous school year at the Academy.” (Apparently it looks shabby when a cape’s super-duper-mobile breaks down and he has to call a tow truck because he doesn’t know anything about what’s under the hood.)

“I haven’t forgotten,” she replied. “How can I, when you remind me every week when we have this discussion?”

“Which begs the question of why we have to do this in the first place. I mean, I aced the class, and I’ve passed all of your little pop quizzes. Can’t we call a truce or something?”

She seemed to ponder this for a moment. “Alright, how about this: a moratorium on any further examination by me – unless and until the car breaks down.”

I frowned, thinking. “I’d say that the quizzing should only resume if the breakdown is the result of driver neglect rather than ordinary wear and tear.”

One corner of Esper’s mouth slid up into a smile. “Deal,” she said, and we shook on it.

Afterwards – since it appeared that we were both going to be in for the evening – we decided to watch a movie. Esper had been on call quite a bit recently, so it was nice to have her home for a minute and be able to hang out. (Like me, Esper didn’t have any relatives – at least none that I knew of – so we both enjoyed the occasions when we got to spend “family time” together.)

As to the movie, we both have a thing for bad horror films. Atrocious acting, horrible special effects, rubber-suited monsters… The worse they are, the more we like them – mostly so we can laugh at how terrible they are. (Esper freely admits that my affection for the genre clearly came from her.) Thus, we ended up settling on a world-class B movie about a basilisk wreaking havoc in a major metropolitan city.

While Esper started setting things up for the movie (including tossing a bag of popcorn in the microwave), I ran upstairs to take a quick shower. Ten minutes later, I dashed back down to the family room, expecting to see a bowl of popcorn on the coffee table and Esper ready to hit the “Play” button on the remote; neither, however, was in position.

Confused, I went into the kitchen to see what was holding things up. Esper was there, as expected, but I stopped short when I saw her. She was wearing a black walker coat that was unbuttoned at the moment, and beneath it she sported the standard Alpha League black-and-gold uniform. She was standing at the kitchen counter, going through the routine check of her League equipment (communicator and so forth).

She glanced at me and a sly grin crept onto her face. “I see you’re wearing your make-my-boyfriend-drool pajamas.”

I glanced down at what I was wearing: a pair of pink and gray pajama shorts and a matching cami with a large heart on it. I smiled as I reflected on what Esper was alluding to: an occasion a few months back when Jim had come by a little late to drop something off for Esper from Mouse, the head of the Alpha League. Without even thinking about how I was dressed, I had answered the door in my current attire, and his mouth had practically dropped open; from then until the moment he left, much to my happy surprise, Jim had barely been able to take his eyes off me. (In all modesty, it is a rather fetching outfit, but truth be told, I show more skin when I wear a bikini.)

“So,” I said, ignoring her comment on my nightwear, “I take it something’s come up.”

She nodded. “Yeah, some type of emergency. I don’t have all the details yet, but they’re sending a car for me, and we’re wheels up in about an hour.”

I simply nodded in understanding. This wasn’t anything new; this was actually routine: being one of the first responders to worldwide crises, global disasters, etc. This is what it meant to be a cape. That being the case (and the fact that this wasn’t uncommon), we really didn’t have to discuss anything, least of all the change in our plans.

As she finished checking her gear, Esper tilted her head slightly to the side, almost as if listening for something. I knew from experience that, telepathically, something had drawn her attention.

“My ride’s here,” she said. She began buttoning her coat as she left the kitchen and headed towards the front door, with me following in her wake.

“Popcorn’s in the microwave,” Esper stated as she turned to give me a hug. “I’ll call as soon as I can.”

She opened the door and stepped out into the wintry air. I stood there, crossing my arms against the cold, and watched as she walked down our driveway to the end of the street, where a dark SUV with tinted windows was parked. The rear passenger-side door opened as she drew close. She slid inside, the door closed, and then the vehicle sped away into the night.