Joshua Dread (12 page)

“And
I’m
just saying it would make sense if it
was
the Dread Duo. They’ve been trying to kill my dad for at least the last ten years.”

“Well … I bet they had their reasons,” I said in a voice that was sharper than I’d intended. I knew I should have just left it alone, but I could feel defensiveness flaring up inside me. “Anyway, it’s not like your dad never tried to kill the Dread Duo.”

“What’s
that
supposed to mean?”

All of a sudden, I couldn’t stand looking at Sophie. Just because my parents were supervillains, and just because they sometimes tried to destroy the world—that didn’t mean she had to go around blaming them for everything bad that happened.

Anyway, I
knew
the Firebottomed Rompers hadn’t been there for Sophie. The logo on the side meant that there had to be some connection to the smoke creatures. But who was behind all this?

When Milton was done talking with Stanley, he turned around in his seat and gave me a long look.

“So you’ve got a superpower, huh?” he said. “And you never thought to tell
me
?”

“I haven’t known for very long,” I said.

“Uh-huh. But you already told Sophie, right?”

“Well … yeah.”

“Interesting.” Milton crossed his arms in front of his chest. “
Very
interesting.”

“What?” I could feel my face going red.

“It just seems like the kind of thing best friends tell each other. I would definitely let you know if
I
had simultaneous combustion.”

“
Spontaneous
combustion.”

“Whatever.” Milton stared out the window at the passing clouds.

“Look, I’m sorry. I guess I was embarrassed. I didn’t want you to think I was some kind of freak.”

Milton scrunched up his face. “Freak? I think it’s awesome you have a superpower! The way you made that Romper’s leg explode … It was probably the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in real life! Just as long as you’re not keeping any other big secrets I don’t know about.”

My heart sank.
Any other big secrets?
Like maybe a fake identity? Parents who tried to destroy the world every couple of months? Did those count as big secrets?

Sophie’s house appeared from within a cluster of trees below. You couldn’t miss it. The place was enormous. I’d heard the Cafeteria Girls say it was big, but I’d had no idea it was
this
big. Imagine the largest house you’ve ever seen. Now imagine that someone took five or six of the largest houses you’ve ever seen and attached them together, then surrounded all of it with a moat and then surrounded
that
with a security wall and a lookout tower armed with machine guns. That might give you some idea of what Sophie’s house looked like.

“We should be safe from those Rompers here,” Sophie said.

“Looks like it,” I said.

In front of us, Stanley pressed a button on the dashboard, and the roof of the garage opened. The hover SUV drifted downward.

The vehicle came to rest on the floor of the garage. The roof slowly closed above us. Stepping out of the SUV, I looked across the vast space. At home, our garage was a mess of tools and half-assembled gadgets lying around on workbenches, jars of flesh-eating bacteria gathering dust on the shelves, basketballs and bicycles and hover scooters pushed into the corners.

This garage was a huge space, at least fifty times larger than our garage at home. Dozens of vehicles of all kinds were arranged in rows. Sports cars, luxury
sedans, armored tanks. I couldn’t believe that they all belonged to one person.

Parked next to the hover SUV was a red convertible, glistening and new. The license plate read:

We followed Stanley through the garage, between rows of shining vehicles, until we reached a door at the far end of the room. Stanley held out his hand. When it neared the doorknob, a silver key popped out from the end of his finger. He inserted the key into the lock and turned. The door opened.

“By the way,” Sophie said, “when you see my dad, try not to mention that we almost got killed by giant robotic insect monsters, okay?”

“Why not?” I asked. “It seems like the kind of thing he might want to know about.”

“He’s a little obsessed with my safety.”

I thought back to the moat surrounding the house and the machine guns on the guard towers surrounding the moat. She had a point.

“If my dad thinks I’m in danger,” she went on, “then we might have to move again.” Her eyes found me in the gloom of the garage. “And I’d kind of like to stay.”

I followed Sophie through the doorway into a vast marble-tiled room. An oriental rug stretched across the
floor at our feet. A staircase curved upward in front of us. The room was bigger than an average house. And this was just the entryway.

“May I fetch you a refreshing beverage?” Stanley asked.

“Uh, sure.” Milton glanced over at Sophie, and when she nodded, he turned back to the robot. “That sounds great.”

“What would you like, sir?”

“Do you have Dr Pepper?”

“Affirmative. How many would you like?”

“Umm … how many can I have?”

“Please allow me one moment while I compute your request.”

For a couple of seconds, the only sound coming out of the robot was a low rumble. Milton stared at him, his eyes beaming.

“A human life-form of your size and weight is capable of consuming 314.65 liquid ounces of Dr Pepper in a two-hour period,” Stanley said. “That equals 26.22 cans. You should be warned that evidence from medical studies has shown that such excessive overconsumption of fructose-based carbonated water could result in severe illness and—”

“I’ll take twenty-six cans, please,” Milton said.

I elbowed Milton.

“Er—actually, I’ll just take one.”

“Me too,” I said.

“Just water for me,” Sophie said.

“Very well,” said Stanley. He bowed mechanically, then strolled jerkily across the room.

“We’re still getting moved in,” Sophie said, pointing at a pile of cardboard boxes. “Stanley’s in the process of unpacking everything.”

“So,” Milton said, “is your … er … dad actually … here?”

“Yeah,” Sophie said.

“Now?”

“I think so.”

Milton looked like he couldn’t decide whether to scream or faint. “Cool,” he said.

Sophie led us deeper into the house. We passed through a living room, a sitting room, a solarium, a dining room, another living room, a kitchen, a library, a third living room, and several other rooms that didn’t seem to have any purpose at all.

One room looked like some kind of art gallery. Oil paintings hung on the walls, encased in flamboyant gold frames, all showing portraits of the same person: Captain Justice.

Another room was filled with merchandise. Boxes of cereal, shelves of tennis shoes, watches, T-shirts, toys. It took me a moment to realize what all the products had in common: They were all endorsed by Captain Justice.
It was the room where he displayed all his merchandise deals. It seemed like a weird thing for a person to have in his own house. On the other hand, I supposed that Captain Justice had to do
something
with all those rooms.

I picked up a box of Frosted Fuel Flakes with Captain Justice’s picture on it. The box was empty. So was a nearby box of microwavable burritos. On the label was a picture of Captain Justice wearing a sombrero. The text underneath read:
You can be a hero too with Señor Loco’s Three-Minute Mexican Feast!

This must’ve been what the Cafeteria Girls had been talking about. Shelf after shelf of empty boxes. All with Captain Justice plastered across the label.

At the far end of the room was a life-sized cardboard cutout of Captain Justice. He looked just like he did in real life. He was grinning his perfect grin, showing off his perfect teeth and his perfect hair. A shiny blue cape hung around his muscular neck. One hand was giving a thumbs-up, while the other was clutching a stick of beef jerky. Beneath him was a label:

We walked into the next room, and there was Captain Justice again. Except this time, it wasn’t a cardboard cutout.

It was the real thing.

He wasn’t wearing his usual silver and blue uniform. Instead, he was dressed in a silver tracksuit and matching headband.

The room was full of bulky machinery that looked designed to inflict some serious pain. Sharp claws, leather straps, spinning knobs. The Cafeteria Girls had been right. They looked just like high-tech torture devices.

And Captain Justice was strapped into one of them.

C
aptain Justice’s hands were grasped by mechanical levers. His feet were hooked up to rotating pedals. Devious-looking robotic arms gripped him around the waist and neck.

That was when I realized Captain Justice wasn’t being tortured. He was exercising.

The machine moved around him, a whirring hive of spinning silver parts. Captain Justice’s legs swung back and forth on the rotating pedals while he simultaneously heaved a barbell up and down with his arms. As if that weren’t enough, he was also attached to straps that
stretched and pulled and twisted different parts of his body into various yoga positions.

Milton gasped. He was in the same room as his hero. And his hero seemed to be doing the weirdest exercises any of us had ever seen.

“Hi, Dad,” Sophie said, walking across the room.

“Hello, Daughter!” Captain Justice managed to say between deep breaths.

“How’s it going?”

“Marvelous! The lab just came up with this machine last week, and it’s wonderfully efficient. It allows me to do all my different exercises at once. In fifteen minutes!”

I watched in awed silence as Captain Justice jogged and lifted weights and performed the downward-facing dog pose, all at the same time.

“These are my friends.” Sophie nodded to the two of us. “Milton and Joshua.”

A flash of panic flared up in my chest. What if Captain Justice recognized me as the son of the Dread Duo? If he had tracked my parents to Sheepsdale, he might also know about me.

But Captain Justice didn’t seem to notice me, or much of anything outside his exercise machine. “Greetings, local children!” was all he said. He turned to smile at us, but then the machine grabbed his neck and yanked him into a new position.

“H-hello, Captain Justice,” Milton said nervously. “I
j-just wanted to say that it is an honor and a … a thrill to meet you today.”

Captain Justice can fly over skyscrapers, juggle boulders, and summon an entire arsenal of holo-weapons. When he isn’t battling the world’s worst bad guys, he can usually be found endorsing some of the world’s bestselling products
.

His hand trembling, Milton reached into his backpack—or what remained of his backpack. The Firebottomed Romper had taken a pretty significant bite out of it. From a tangle of ripped papers and books, he removed a magazine that was still in pretty good shape. Glancing at the cover, I instantly recognized the splashy colors and the bold headlines. It was the new issue of
Super Scoop
.

Milton took a step forward, clasping the magazine close to his chest. Captain Justice continued to huff and jog and heave and twist.

“Um … Mr.—I mean,
Captain
Justice,” Milton began, “I was wondering, if it isn’t too much trouble, if you might be able to … to sign an autograph for me.”

“Most certainly!”

Milton held the magazine out with one hand, a pen gripped in the other. A mechanical arm swung out from the exercise machine and grabbed the pen. With a quick, robotic motion, the device scribbled something onto the cover.

“See what I mean?” Captain Justice said as the machine signed his autograph for him. “This really improves my efficiency!”

When the machine was done with the autograph, it attempted to return the pen to Milton, though it looked
more like it was trying to stab him in the face. Milton ducked just in time. The pen fell to the ground. Captain Justice went on with his exercise.

“Wow!” Milton gushed. “Thanks, Captain Justice!”

“You’re welcome, Marlon! Just don’t believe everything you read in that magazine.” Captain Justice nodded at the copy of
Super Scoop
. In the next instant, the machine prodded him into a new and torturous position. “A couple of weeks ago, they claimed I was having a secret relationship with Scarlett Flame just because some paparazzi caught us talking together for five minutes outside my agent’s office. On the other hand,
Super Scoop
is a terrific platform for promotion. My business manager tells me that it reaches a key demographic of—”

“That’s great, Dad,” Sophie interrupted. “I was going to show them the rest of the house.”

“Of course, darling!” Captain Justice said. “Enjoy your afternoon!”

Milton would’ve been happy to stand at Captain Justice’s side for as long as possible, but Sophie was already guiding us out of the room. She led us through an arched doorway, down a hall, and up a winding stairway.