Free Trainee Superhero (Book Three) by C. H. Aalberry Page B

family
memorabilia. If I do my job well - and I always do - you won’t even
notice the burn marks.
    I’m the one who gets called for all the
hardest hunts.
    I once killed a scout bomb at the White House
while the president was giving a speech on the lawns. If you check
the footage carefully you might see a blur on the roof when the
president starts talking about how safe the Super Corps has made
the world.
    That was me.
    And I hunt alone.
     
    I’ve been chasing a wounded octo-ape for the
last three days. It’s a dangerous beast, and fast, but it’s not yet
ready to fight again. Its current priority - as far as we can tell
- is to hide and repair itself. Many of the saucers’ creations
simply fight and die without regard for their own safety, but a few
are more careful.
    More intelligent? I can’t say. More difficult
to deal with? That I know for sure.
    I am trying to chase the octo-ape out of the
city, but it is an elusive creature. It spent last night doubling
back through the city, attempting to find a place to hide during
the day, and I lost its trail for a few hours. We have been playing
this game for too long, and I am tired. I’ve only had six hours’
sleep since this hunt started, and I ran out of food yesterday.
This kind of work is better suited for two people, but I have yet
to meet another person I can trust not to screw up.
    Do you think I’m being too harsh? You could
ask the opinion of the families of the eighty-three people who died
when my last partner got sloppy. His mistake was taking a lunch
break when the ghostwalker we were tracking decided to go on a
rampage. That’s how fine the line is between success and disaster
in this line of work.
    My stomach rumbles at the thought of food. I
should be eating lunch right now, but there is no time. I have to
keep searching for this ape before it’s ready to start fighting
again.
    “Anything?” says a voice in my helmet.
    I don’t reply out loud - too noisy - but I
click the No button on my gloves.
    Radios don’t work when the saucers are
around, but that’s not a problem for me. I have a team of
assistants who use satellites and local CCTV to keep an eye out on
the area. They do good work, but it’s not the same as having help
on the ground.
    “You must be hungry,” says another of my
assistants, “can we organize food for you? Pizza delivery like last
time?”
    The pizza guy is paid to drop his delivery on
a park bench and I take it from there. He has no idea where I am,
and neither does my quarry. It normally works fine, but I have a
bad feeling that this ape is about to make a move.
    No , I signal.
    “Sure? You must be hungry?”
    I push the Shush button I had
installed for situations like this.
    “Your call. We haven’t picked up anything
here, so you may as well take a break. Or we can send you the next
list of likely hideouts in your area?”
    Yes .
    “Okay, we are sending them to your GPS
now.”
    Even superheroes need a GPS when they are in
the city. I check the list of targets and my heart sinks: one of
the targets is a high school. It would have been quiet last night,
and I bet it has lots of places to hide. I get a bad feeling in my
stomach that has nothing to do with being hungry. I start flying,
jumping from roof to roof while the people below me continue their
lives without noticing me.
    No one sees me; there are reasons I was
chosen for this job.
    “The school?” asks one of the voices on my
radio.
    “The school,” confirms the other, “there
should be about a thousand students there. I’ll start the
evacuation protocol.”
    The rules are that we don’t evacuate
buildings until I see my quarry. It's not my rule, but has been put
in place by the Super Corps to prevent undue panic.
    “This is just a gut feeling, right?” asks my
radio.
    Yes .
    “So you could be wrong?”
    No .
    “Ah. This is not good.”
    No .
    The school looks like any other: green
fields, older buildings, students everywhere. The only thing