Rise of the Heroes (4 page)

“If you say so. Just don't use the computer. I need to work on it tonight and I don't want it damaged by lightning.”

Sarah moved into the lounge, her voice receding. Toby let out a huge breath and scuttled safely down the wall. Lorna wheeled around on him with an accusing finger.

“See? You nearly got us into trouble. You and that stupid Web site.”

“What did I do?”

Lorna and Emily trudged upstairs. “I guess that's the end of that!” Emily said.

Toby and Pete exchanged a glance. They both knew she was wrong. Something like this could not be forgotten, or swept aside. Something like this needed to be explored and tested.

Lorna heaved a cart top-heavy with local newspapers. Toby was with her, providing the legwork between the cart and the mailboxes. Following the previous day's excitement and resulting arguments, a sullen silence had hung over them. It was still there as they picked up their newspaper route from the newsstand.

They had both done the paper route for the last two years. Their parents had insisted that earning their own money would be good for them. And, on the whole, both Lorna and Toby agreed—when Mr. Patel finally got around to paying them. He was already two months behind, not because Mr. Patel was mean, but because he was forgetful.

Last night they had all gathered in Toby's bedroom before Emily and Pete had left, and tried to evoke Toby's powers again, after persuading Pete not to try his, as they didn't want to burn the house down. But nothing happened. Whatever magic had triggered the effect, it was gone.

After their friends had left, Lorna spent the night
complaining that she and Emily hadn't had a chance to try the powers bestowed by the Web site. Toby thought it was a typical change of attitude and had decided not to mention that he had saved the Web site in his “Favorites” folder. He was still mulling over what had happened.

Overnight his entire outlook on life had changed. He'd always liked comic books and loved movies, but he knew they were fiction—nothing more. The world was not under constant threat, people couldn't fire lasers from their eyes, and monsters weren't real.

Yet now he'd seen the evidence of superpowers firsthand and if he was wrong about that, what else existed out there? Now the world seemed full of incredible opportunities. And maybe that's why they didn't see their father? Maybe he wasn't a mild-mannered archaeologist but really a superhero, saving the world from heinous villains?

Toby dutifully pulled a newspaper from the top of the pile and approached the next house lost in thought. His hand reached for the gate latch, prompting the angry rottweiler on the other side to bristle with fury and throw its full weight against the gate, which shook violently.

Startled, Toby backed away. The snarling beast clawed at the wire mesh, barking furiously. Toby tossed the paper over the gate, the confused mutt running after it only to shred it with powerful chomps.

Lorna snorted out a laugh. “You're as white as a sheet!”

Toby treated her to an accusing glare. “Oh, talking now, are we? It only takes my near death to get you speaking again?”

“Look who's talking! You haven't even mumbled for the last half hour. That's not like you.”

“Well, doesn't this all seem, I don't know … mundane after last night?”

“How would I know? I never got to try it.”

“Aw, don't start that again. You were telling me
not
to use that Web site.”

“Well … I was wrong.” Toby blinked in surprise. Hearing his sister admit to being wrong was unnatural. “And I wanted to try. Don't look at me like that. I couldn't exactly agree with you. Especially not in front of Em.”

Toby cast a last glance at the dog, which was now covered in newspaper confetti, before continuing up the street.

“Apology accepted.”

“It wasn't an apology.”

“Well, it should have been. Promise not to flip out, but what if I told you we could try again?”

A smile played across Lorna's mouth. “Really?”

Toby checked that the next yard was free from predators before taking the newspaper from the cart. Lorna grabbed the end of the paper before he could move away.

“Tell me!”

Toby pulled the paper, but Lorna wasn't letting go. It was a sibling tug-of-war.

“Okay … I'll tell you. But it's my find. My rules.” Lorna opened her mouth to object—but was silenced by Toby's raised finger. “Okay? So don't go snooping around without me. Do we have a deal?”

Lorna released the paper. “Okay! Your rules, I get it.”

“I saved it in the computer's ‘Favorites!'”

Lorna looked at him in surprise. Of course, it was obvious! That's what the Favorites list was for, making shortcuts to Web sites you liked to visit. But there was no Web address on the site—or to give it its correct moniker, URL, Uniform Resource Locator—as Pete had kept correcting them.

“Will that work? Without a URL?”

A shadow of doubt clouded Toby's face but he turned to conceal it from his sister. “Why wouldn't it? It worked last night.”

“Can we try it? Later?”

“Well, it said we only have a two-day trial. So it has got to be today. I'm going to call Pete over.”

“I'll tell Em.”

Toby rammed the paper through the mailbox, perhaps with a little more force than was needed. “If you have to. So we're agreed? My find, my rules. Mom is out tonight so we have got as much time as we need.”

“Okay. But this time we need to be prepared. I don't want us to burn the house down.”

“No problem. I'm in charge of the Web site and superpowers. You're in charge of
safety
.” Toby sniggered. He'd just assigned himself the coolest job. Sometimes his sister was such a sucker.

The doorbell rang at 3:30 p.m.

Pete came in first, giddy with excitement and with a pile of comics tucked under his arm. Emily followed, shaking her head. “He's been talking about Spider-Man and Superman all the way down here.
Incessantly
.”

Pete and Emily lived two streets apart, and their paths often crossed on the trek to the Wilkinsons'. It was an unavoidable fact they had both come to terms with and eventually started to enjoy, although they would never admit that to anyone, let alone each other.

“This is all relevant,” said Pete. “You're lucky I read these things, because that now makes me something of an expert.” The comic books also proved a handy method of tuning out his parents' arguments, which had been increasing in intensity lately. Focusing on the world that unfolded in the comic-book pages allowed him to avoid the reality around him. But he didn't want to burden his friends with that.

Emily shook her head doubtfully. “Yeah, right.”

Lorna led them into the study where Toby waited, impatiently pacing the room. True to his word he had not booted up the computer until everybody arrived.

Lorna nodded. “Okay, Tobe. Let's do this.”

Toby shot into the chair and thumbed the power button. He nervously drummed his fingers as the machine bleeped to life.

“I wonder if this will work without a storm?” he said. “We better hope so. There's nothing we can do about that,” said Lorna.

“I haven't heard of anything like this,” said Pete, waving a dog-eared comic for emphasis. “I went online at home. Searched everywhere, but couldn't track down that Web site or find any mention of it at all. Nothing anywhere. No newsgroups, blogs, Web pages, or links. It simply doesn't exist.”

Lorna snatched an X-Men comic from Pete and took a seat next to her brother as she flicked through it. “So instead, you're using comic books for reference material?”

“Why not?”

“Duh! They're
comic books
. Not real life.”

“What if you're wrong?”

Lorna shrugged as though the answer was obvious. “I don't think I am. It's just such a geeky idea that it scares me.”

Toby stepped in to save his friend. “Well, they may
not exactly be all true stories. But maybe they're written with some deeper meaning?”

“Like those newspaper stories claiming Elvis lives on the moon?”

Emily frowned. “Who's Elvis?”

Toby shook his head. “So sheltered.”

Lorna thumped him on the shoulder, normally an action that resulted in a chase around the house. But not this time. Toby was concentrating on the screen as the computer's desktop appeared.

“We're up and running.”

Pete and Emily crowded around him. Toby treated them all to an appropriately solemn look. “Fingers crossed, everybody.”

He double-clicked the mouse. Seconds later the browser appeared, instantly logging them onto the Web. They waited for the home page to appear.

Electrons moved at the speed of light from their computer, tunneling through the phone exchange and onward to their ISP server, located in a subterranean bunker somewhere in the country. The powerful computers relayed the information, identified the IP address of the specific server the home page was located on, and shot it back into the telephone exchange. The data bumped a satellite ride, before beaming down to a receiver dish at a “ground station.” It navigated through the phone exchange once more, as it headed toward
another server halfway around the world. The server acknowledged the request and issued a stream of data along a similar route—and back to Toby's computer, all in a couple of seconds.

“We're online.”

Toby moved the cursor up the screen toward the toolbar and the Favorites menu.

To Toby it seemed the mouse pointer was moving sluggishly as he clicked. Another menu zipped down the screen, filled with a collection of sports and movies Web sites. And at the bottom: one simply labeled “HERO.”

Click.

The page changed to a blank screen. Nothing happened.

Pete groaned in disappointment. “The find of the century, and we lost it!”

“Wait,” said Toby. “Something's happening!”

The Web address appeared on-screen, again a string of illegible characters. And then the same basic Web page as last time appeared.

Lorna laughed aloud. “It worked! Good thinking, Tobe.”

Even the excitement of finding the Web site took a fleeting backseat to the rare compliment from his sister.

Lorna's hand suddenly lashed out, stopping Toby from enthusiastically clicking the mouse.

“Take it easy! This time we'll read it carefully.”

Calming himself, Toby clicked on the download page.

Again the screen changed to hundreds of separate icons; a pop-up window appeared, the text wavering through several languages before settling on English. Lorna read it aloud.

“Final day of free trial. Welcome, Heroes! Please choose your download carefully and enjoy an hour of super fun.”

Pete nodded sagely. “An hour! That's why it didn't work again last night.”

Toby scrolled the message window down a little more as Lorna continued. “Once you have chosen your powers, then please check out the job board.”

“Job board?” exclaimed Pete. “Why would we want a job?”

“That's what it says. And there's a disclaimer at the bottom.” Lorna squinted as a slab of text appeared in a smaller font. She took a deep breath and read quickly:

“Hero.com is not liable for any damage, destruction, loss of equipment, premises, or life; including loss of limb, brain function, or other biological necessities. Loss of personal possessions, sanity, or loved ones is the sole responsibility of the End User (He, She, It, who chooses to use such powers). We do not condone the use of powers for monetary gain, selfish or evil pursuit, and absolve ourselves from any such claim, misuse, or misunderstanding.”

“Wow,” said Emily. Her parents were both lawyers, so she had grown up among headache-inducing contracts and declarations that she had found around the house. Her father had even jokingly created one relating to giving her an allowance. “Incomprehensible legalese” was the term he was most proud of using. “Now
that's
a warning,” Emily said.

“Loss of life …,” said Toby quietly.

Lorna nudged him gently in the ribs. “Not chickening out now, are you?”

“Well … no. Just … it didn't occur to me that it could actually be dangerous.”

“Dangerous? Pete almost burned the house down yesterday!”

Pete nodded encouragingly. “I nearly did.”

Toby shifted in his seat, suddenly aware that he was being the only rational person in a room of eager crazies. “It's just that last night didn't
feel
dangerous. I mean, who created this Web site? There's no company name or contact information on it. Is this even legal?”

Lorna tugged the mouse from his grasp. “Look, plastic bags have warnings on them, saying that they could be dangerous and cause suffocation. But do you feel scared when you use one?”