They said good-bye, and Izzy headed back inside, flopping down onto the couch and switching her laptop on. She clicked straight to the Council website,
www.superherocentral.com,
entered her password, and started scrolling through the news, wanting to see if the announcement of her new position had made the Daily Update. And if so, if anyone was posting nasty gossip about it on the Council’s message boards.
The promotion had come from the High Elder himself, and it was just a coincidence of birth that Zephron happened to also be her uncle. So while some Protectors might look down their noses at her skills and whisper that she received special treatment, Izzy was determined not to be cowed; she deserved this promotion, and she intended to prove it.
For the last two years, she’d worked with low-level Outcasts—interviewing them, analyzing their psych profiles, and using her innate abilities to judge if they were worthy of returning to the fold. Starting tomorrow, though, she’d be dealing with the rogue Protectors who’d undertaken a lot more serious offenses. The promotion was exciting, yes, but also a little bit scary. Not that she’d ever admit
that
to anyone.
She scrolled down, staring idly at the colorful screen, but not really seeing. Her job was tough, no doubt about that. A lot of Protectors simply didn’t want Outcasts reentering the fold, and Izzy could understand their reasoning. After all, as superheroes in the mortal world, the Protectors’ sworn duty was to watch over mortals. Outcasts, though ...
Most Outcasts had managed to break that sacred trust, and they’d paid the price by being shunned, stripped of their right to use their powers. Not that the censure stopped the truly nefarious Outcasts; they just continued in secret their evil plotting against the mortal race.
And it was precisely because of those plotting, scheming, conniving Outcasts that so many Protectors were against re-assimilation. And while Izzy knew where they were coming from, she also knew that
some
Protectors had been outcast for only minor infractions. Or for breaking some tenet of Protector law in order to serve the greater good. Or—
She cut her thoughts off with a sharp shake of her head. The fact that she could completely empathize with how a Protector could be outcast for a low-level offense was precisely the reason she had this job in the first place. Her primary Protector trait was empathy, and that was the skill she relied on primarily for her job. She picked up emotions in scent: a handy trait if she ever needed to know if someone was trying to pull the wool over her eyes.
She was also adept at mind reading; just one touch, and unless she’d had time to put up some heavy-duty mental blocks, she’d find herself awash in another person’s specific thoughts, not just vague feelings. The skill was handy, but also draining. Even more, since Regulation 976B(2)(d) required a mind warrant or full disclosure (which re-assimilation candidates were required to give) before reading another Protector, Izzy tended to use her touch power only during the last phase of re-assimilation.
Reading mortals was forbidden, too, and the regulations spelled out specific censures for any mind reading Protector caught in the act. Izzy knew she shouldn’t have meddled in Burt and Janey’s romance, but some rules were meant to be broken. Arid considering how happy Burt now seemed, she could hardly regret her breach of protocol.
Her finger slid over the trackball as she scrolled through the boards, looking for a reference to herself. Nothing. Well, good. Maybe nobody was gossiping about her. After all, her skill had earned her the promotion.
Not
her family connections.
She repeated the thought, trying to make herself believe it. She knew she was good; knew her talents were real. Unfortunately, that didn’t necessarily mean that she should have been admitted to the Council in the first place.
No.
She pushed the familiar doubt from her mind. So what if she’d received special dispensation? All Halfling applications were scrutinized, and they’d let her in because she was good—
not
because the High Elder happened to be her uncle.
Besides, that had been a long time ago. She’d pulled her own weight since then, and this promotion was no exception. She was going to ace this job, and she was going to prove to one and all that her uncle’s confidence was justified.
No matter what, she’d—
“
Fire! Fire
!” The unfamiliar voice filtered through her mishmash of thoughts, and she shot to her feet, realizing that the banging and pounding had stopped, replaced by an ominous silence.
Her father
!
Jumping Jupiter, was he okay? What had he done now?
She raced to the back door and threw it open, revealing a stocky little man who vaguely resembled a hamster. She had no idea who he was, and she really didn’t care. “Fire? Where?”
“Down there!” He stabbed at the air, pointing up rather than down, but it didn’t matter. Izzy could see gray puffs of smoke rising into the air. The house was built into a hill and, as she leaned over the railing for a view of the basement window, there was a horrible clatter as the window blew out in a flurry of glass and flames.
“Daddy!” Izzy shrieked. Without thinking about the hamstery stranger, she bounded over the railing, jumping the two stories to the hard and dusty ground. She landed in a crouch, dropped into a roll, then sprang to her feet, never missing a step as she raced for the door.
She might not fight bad guys in the field, but at the moment her semi-rusty Protector skills were serving her just fine, thank you very much.
As she reached the now-decimated basement window, she heard the sound of someone slipping and sliding down the craggy slope behind her. Hamster-man, no doubt.
She didn’t bother to see if her guess was right. Just waved away the dust and smoke and peered inside the workshop.
She’d expected a huge conflagration. Instead, she saw a lot of smoke, some charred feathers, and other unrecognizable bits of flotsam and jetsam smoldering in the various corners. Glass bottles, plastic flasks, screws, nails, wires of all colors. Even a collection of deep purple fountain pens, scattered like Pick-up Sticks in a puddle of green goo.
And, thank goodness, her father was there, too, huddled in the corner, worrying at a large metal box with an oversized screwdriver. His white hair stood straight out in all directions, and black streaks marred his face, giving him the appearance of a rather baffled, and somewhat incompetent, soldier in camouflage.
As far as Izzy could tell, he hadn’t yet seen her. For that matter, he didn’t even seem to realize there’d been a fire. Much less that bits of trash were still smoldering around him.
“Daddy!”
He looked up, blinked owlishly behind his thick glasses, and then smiled. “Izzy, my girl, I think I’ve finally got it!”
“Got it?” She swiveled, her gaze taking in the workroom that looked more or less like the aftermath of a tornado. “Got what?”
“Doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter. Far too complicated to go into now.” He climbed to his feet and started dusting himself off, for the first time squinting around the room. “Hmmmph. Going to have to find something less flammable than gunpowder for the starting reaction,
that’s
for sure.”
He wasn’t talking to her, and so Izzy just watched as her father patted himself down.
“Pencils, notes. Ah, yes. Here. Now then.” He frowned. “Where are my glasses?” He swiveled, his gaze sweeping in an arc over the floor.
“Daddy...”
“Just a minute, sweetie. I’m looking for my glasses.”
“They’re on your head, Daddy.”
“They are?” He looked cross-eyed, obviously focusing on the bridge piece. “So they are!”
She shook her head, fighting a smile. Her father was a dear, and not really
that
absent-minded. He just had a tendency to lose himself in his work. After two or three hours away from the basement, he’d be good as new.
“Come on, Daddy. Let’s make sure this fire is out and then head upstairs. I’ll fix you lunch, and you can tell me what happened.”
“Oh, no, no. I couldn’t go now. I’m right on the verge!”
Izzy looked dubiously at the collection of wires and circuits on his worktable. “Uh. Yeah.”
“If s just a matter of tweaking the design, so I don’t overload the transmitter or the receivers. Oh, Mr. B is going to be delighted. Just delighted!” He actually clapped his hands together, and Izzy couldn’t help but grin.
“Who’s Mr. B?” she asked.
“Oh, my dear, you’re going to love him. He’s been an inspiration. An absolute inspiration. We’ve been working together now for a year, and I swear, the man has insight into my work that’s simply—”
“Help! Get it away from me! Help!”
“Oh, my goodness gracious, the servo-bot!” her father cried.
Izzy swung around in time to see what she’d thought was a pile of tin cans and rubbish grab Hamster-man. Apparently the thing was some sort of robot, and now it stood tall, tin-can head twisting this way and that, as one hinged arm swung upward, Hamster-man dangling from a viselike grip that served as a hand.
“Help me! Put me down!”
The servo-bot (whatever the heck
that
was) didn’t seem inclined to cooperate; and instead of releasing the poor man, it simply started spinning—going round and round on the roller-skate wheels that served as feet—while its poor prisoner screamed and screamed for the metallic creation to
put him down
.
“No, no,” her father shouted. “Mr. Tucker,
please
don’t speak. The voice reactor node is damaged. The bot thinks you’re saying ‘
around.’ ”
“I am
not
,” cried the little man. “Put me down!”
But that just got the bot riled up some more, and around and around he turned, while Mr. Tucker’s complexion shifted through various shades of green.
“Daddy!” Izzy cried. “Where’s the control? Shut that thing off before Mr. Tucker gets hurt.” Even as she spoke, she was racing to the far side of the room, toward the spinning robot and the flailing Mr. Tucker. Ideally, she’d use her innate Protector power of levitation to lift the robot off the floor and stop him from spinning. Then she could get Mr. Tucker loose before putting the robot safely out of harm’s way.
Unfortunately, she didn’t
have
any innate Protector power of levitation. That was her dirty little stigma—the fact that she’d been admitted to the Council even though, as a Protector, she was truly sub-par, unable to pass an examination of even the most rudimentary Protector skills.
“It’s not functioning,” her father yelled from behind her. “Ah, blasted thing!” She could hear him whacking the controls against something hard, curses flying from his lips.
In front of her, the bot was still spinning and Mr. Tucker’s eyes were beginning to bulge.
Well, she might not be an ace at levitation, but she still had strength and agility in her repertoire, and it was time to put them to good use. But as she started to jump into the fray, the bot’s head began to spark, the little flashes dancing around his head like lightning bugs.
“The CPU,” her father hollered. “It’s flammable. One of those sparks catches, and—”
Kabloom!
The bot’s head shot straight off, but losing his head didn’t mean losing his grip, and the now headless and flaming robot was still holding tight to Mr. Tucker.
“That’s just the beginning,” her dad cried, still banging away at the remote. “Oh, dear, oh dear,
where
did I put that fire extinguisher?”
Just the beginning
? And then Izzy realized. The bot was writhing in a mass of electricity, shaking as if being attacked by a thousand electric eels. The entire thing was going to blow, and if the force of the first explosion was any indication, Mr. Tucker was going to be in serious trouble when the even more massive robot torso lit up like a Roman candle.
With no time to waste, Izzy stood stock-still in the middle of the room, ignoring all the sound, and especially ignoring Mr. Tucker’s screams to please get him down
now
. She couldn’t afford the distraction. Couldn’t afford to mess up. She had one shot and one shot only.
And then she heard it. A faint electrical crackle as the CPU ignited. She wasn’t ready—hadn’t let her power fully fill her—but hopefully she was ready enough.
With one quick movement, she lashed out, sending a shower of icy sparks flying from her fingertips. Her aim was dead-on ... and her timing was perfect. Just as the bot started to explode, Izzy’s ice storm enveloped it, essentially dousing the flames and leaving nothing but the gentle sizzle of steam rising to fill the room.
“I... what... who ... help ...” Mr. Tucker’s weak cries filtered through the haze, and Izzy picked her way to him, then pried open the bot’s viselike hands so that the little man could fall, uninjured, to the ground.
“Oh, good job, Izzy.” Her father rushed up behind her, clapping his hands. Then he reached down and helped Mr. Tucker to his feet, and began shaking the little man’s hand vigorously. “Mr. Tucker. So very, very good to finally meet you. As you can see, things can get a little out of control here in the lab. But that’s the exciting life of an inventor.”
“I, yes. Yes, I see that.” Mr. Tucker squinted at him. “You
are
Harold Frost?”
“Of course. Of course. And this is my daughter, Izzy.”
She wiggled her fingers in a little wave. “Hello.”
“But who... how?”
“Another one of my inventions,” Harold lied. “Izzy’s testing my, um, my...”
“Freezing beam,” Izzy said helpfully. “Top secret. Government. Very hush-hush. Do keep it quiet.”
Mr. Tucker nodded, looking absurdly proud to have been rescued by a top secret device. “Of course. Of course. But what a pity it’s a secret. Something like this would liven up the speech considerably.”
Izzy frowned. “Speech?” She looked between her dad and Mr. Tucker, finally settling on the newcomer, who smelled of self-importance. “Who are you?”
“Why, I’m here to interview your father, of course. The ceremony is just days away!”
“Ceremony?”