Anna woke up early to check the Eye website, Rooftop Watch, and other superhero groupie sites. She figured what was most likely: The Eye wouldn’t publish anything about Judge Roland’s corruption without doing some checking. So there wouldn’t be anything. But that wasn’t what happened.
“Who Is Espionage?”
That was the headline and lead story, accompanied by a photo of the note she’d written. It was a shock to see her note as front-page news. But a kinda cool shock. The scoop about the judge was there in a side article, along with various comments about the judge not responding to repeated phone calls and the word “alleged” in front of everything. The Eye also printed a bunch of additional information, stuff she and Teddy hadn’t delivered—so the paper had been keeping its own file on Roland for years and already had a stack of allegations. They published the new scoop because it gave them the concrete proof they needed to go public.
But the story the Eye was most interested in was Commerce City’s newest and most mysterious hero. The article was filled with speculation and quotes from police and professional superhero watchers, academics and psychologists. The article drew the line between this and the original evidence collected against Scarzen and suggested that maybe it was a personal vendetta. One of the commentators got close to the mark, speculating that Espionage’s power must have been geared toward “clandestine activities”—a phrase Teddy would probably latch on to. Invisibility, teleportation, and mind control were all suggested.
Nobody suggested that Espionage could be more than one person. Anna couldn’t have come up with a better disguise than that in a million years.
But there was no sign that anything was going to happen to Judge Roland. Roland reported a theft from his house to the police, but the police investigated and couldn’t find any sign of a break-in, no busted locks, not so much as a fingerprint, and Roland wouldn’t give an inventory of exactly what had been taken. He claimed only that items in his safe had clearly been tampered with. Roland’s lawyer threatened a libel suit, but the Eye countered with the evidence it had in hand, and the police promised to launch an investigation, and the story faded to sidebars and afterthoughts.
No instant gratification was forthcoming. But the Eye managed to find something to say about Espionage every day for a week. So they were famous, sort of. And once again, the attempt to do good hadn’t worked out like it was supposed to. Maybe she just ought to learn kung fu and start punching people out directly. Somehow, that didn’t appeal.
“We have to go patrolling again. Tonight,” Teddy insisted, during lunch. “Keep up the momentum.”
They were sitting in one corner, and Anna kept glancing at Teia, Lew, Sam, and a couple of other people who were sitting in another corner, laughing about something or other while eating sandwiches and pizza. Probably not superpowered stuff, because of the civilians there. And she was thinking of their nonpowered classmates as civilians. She was going insane.
“I don’t know. I’m really tired,” she said, picking at her food.
“You want to let them keep having all the fun?” His gaze darted to the corner where the sometime Trinity was having an ordinary high-school lunch.
“Teddy, that’s not the point, how many times do I have to say it.”
“We can do more, Anna, I know we can. But we have to get out there.”
He hadn’t asked her about prom again. He’d completely forgotten about it, or he really didn’t have the guts to look her in the eye and tell her he liked her. She thought about asking him about it—reminding him. But a perverse part of her didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. She didn’t want to seem that needy. It all felt so ridiculous.
“If that’s how you feel, why don’t you just go do it on your own?” she said.
“Because we’re a team.” Like it was obvious. His expression was clean, stark, not a lick of deception there. Her heart melted a bit. “Look, we head back to Hell’s Alley and I bring my paint gun like last time, since that actually worked out pretty well…” He rambled on for a little while with an even more ambitious version of the paintball-tagging scenario, while she thoughtfully chewed her sandwich. They made plans about where and when to meet, and whether they should think about putting together some better-looking outfits. Since they weren’t likely to get their pictures taken anywhere, Anna didn’t know why it mattered. But it did, so there.
If they were going to go on patrol, she thought, they needed more than a paint gun. They needed to be intimidating. They needed more power.
They finished eating and gathered up their things to leave for next period.
“So…” she said carefully, testing. “I wondered if it would be okay if I invited someone else along.”
“Who?”
“You remember the guy from the park that one time? The jumper?”
Teddy froze, like he needed a minute to process what she’d said. “Frogger? That guy? Don’t tell me you’ve been talking to him.”
“Yeah, so what if I have?”
“It’s just … we don’t know anything about him. Are you sure he’s a good guy?”
She knew exactly where Teddy was coming from on that one, but she breezed past it. “I think he can help us. We can really use someone powerful. Some muscle.” And boy, did Eliot have muscle. He still hadn’t e-mailed her, though.
“And you trust him?”
“I trust him enough,” she said, which was a terribly evasive answer.
“Well, I don’t. Sign up Toad Man? No way.”
“Jealous?”
He glared. “What? Why would I be jealous.”
“You know, you were supposed to ask me again if I want to go to prom with you. You know, when we’re not wearing masks in a back alley at midnight.” That sounded a lot kinkier than it really was. Her life probably looked a lot more exciting from the outside.
“Okay, um.” He winced, scratching the back of his head. “Yeah. So. Um. Do you … I mean, I guess you’ve had time to think about it and all. So, will you maybe go to prom with me?”
She thought about Eliot, and let that thought go. “Yeah. Okay.”
“Um. Okay. Cool.” He actually looked startled.
What were they supposed to do now? Hug? Shake hands? Make out? Um …
The chimes for next period rang, and they both made nervous, grateful chuckles.
“I’ll see you tonight, then,” he said, waving awkwardly and backing away.
“Yeah, see you.” Her waving was just as awkward.
She started to walk to her own next class, mostly because she felt Teia coming up behind her and wanted to get away. But Teia grabbed her arm.
“Anna, can I talk to you?” Teia said.
“I’m really busy right now.” She sighed, letting more frustration edge into her voice than she meant.
“This is important,” she said, sounding just as frustrated and increasing her pace to keep up with Anna’s retreat.
“We’re late for class.”
“Two seconds. Please.”
At that, Anna let Teia pull her into a corner. “I read the top news on the Eye this morning. Nice work.”
Anna supposed that if you actually knew her and Teddy, the identity of the most mysterious superhero ever was pretty obvious. What she couldn’t tell was if Teia was being sarcastic. A sneering observation of how little they were really able to do. She didn’t want to engage.
“You going to blow our cover?” she said, not able to sound entirely neutral.
“Nope. Code of honor. You haven’t blown ours, right?”
Was that what it was? Honor was what drove Teia to make headlines? No, they were all just making it up as they went along.