Free Used to Be: The Kid Rapscallion Story by Mark Bousquet

Jason slaps a small metal disc into her hand. “I want to fuc-”
    She disappears.
    “Thanks,” Jason thinks and an image of the Psychic Navigator nodding enters his mind.
     
    35
     
    It does not take long to find Fake Out because Kid Rapscallion is rolling with the full power of the Fort behind him. Psychic Navigator quickly finds Becca inside the Grand Vegas’ security room, and he heads into the building to confront her. When he does, she is sitting behind the secretary’s desk and smiling in her new uniform.
    “You’re messed up,” he accuses.
    “No more than you,” she says, frowning as she rises to her feet and holds out her arms. “You can arrest me now.”
    “You’re just going to give up?”
    She nods, and Jason sees there is a difference between the illusion of her on the roof and the actual her that stands before him. “We could go through all of the fighting,” she says, defeat fully evident in her voice, “but we know how this works. Eventually you’ll catch me. Or worse, you’ll get one of the Revolutionaries to do it. The bigger a fool I make of you, the more interested the other heroes will become in stopping me, and I really am not ready to do that.”
    “You did this for what, then?” he asks. “Just to make me look dumb?”
    Fake Out pulls off her mask, revealing Becca underneath. She looks tired and ready for this to be over. “I am not going to say,” she says, “that I started out evil but then really fell in love with you, or anything. I liked what I did. All of it. I’m probably even more fucked up than you, but then, why wouldn’t I be, right? Who were my role models? Birthed by henchmen and raised by the man pulling the biggest scam the hero community had ever seen. Truth is, I don’t know what else to do.”
    “Are you asking for sympathy?” Jason asks. “Seriously?”
    “No,” she admits. “I’m asking you to arrest me. I did what Uncle Vincent asked me to do, just as I always did. Do you know who Wolfskinder is?”
    “Of course,” Jason says, unsure of where this is going. “The Wolf Children. Baron Black ’s kids.”
    “Great grandkids now,” she says, moving across the plush carpet, still with her hands out. “There’s three of them that run ROMULUS. Uncle Vincent did a deal with them a few years back, and one of them, Gregori, wanted me included as part of the deal.” Becca hangs her head and Jason isn’t sure if she’s playing him or revealing herself to him; it’s unsettling because whether this is another lie or the actual truth, it’s a side of Becca he can’t read. “There’s all this talk about old heroes like Rapscallion running around with young male sidekicks, right? It’s all a big joke, like priests and their altar boys, but if that’s what the rumors are about the good guys, what do you think the bad guys are doing?”
    “Are you telling me Gregori raped you?” he asks, feeling his confusion give way to anger.
    “So literal,” she laughs a bit maniacally. “All you heroes, so fucking literal. Is it rape when I’m given to someone as an object? My uncle told me to let him do whatever he wanted, so I did. He’s hot. Maybe I wanted it. Maybe I would have done it, anyway. It’s the life, Jason.”
    “That’s not an excuse.”
    “Now you’re being all noble?” she asks. “You? Where was that nobility when you had me tied to the bed?”
    “That was … that was … Jesus.”
    “Uncle Vincent wanted his replacement taken down,” Becca shrugs, putting her head on Jason’s chest. “He thinks the city will ask him to come back, I think. I don’t know. I don’t want sympathy. I liked the game we were playing. I liked all of it,” she says, her hand going to his crotch. “One last time?” she suggests.
    “No,” he says, and they’re both glad for a brief moment of doing the right thing.
     
    36
     
    “Are you coming back upstairs?” Striped Star asks as Kid Rapscallion hands Fake Out over to her on the roof of the