Free The Nameless Hero by Lee Bacon Page A

at the same speed. In order to pass through the doorway, they turned sideways and scuttled inside one at a time.
    “The Smicks will be seeing each of you individually,” Gavin told us. “First up is Miranda.”
    I felt a twinge of pity for her. The Smicks took intimidation to a whole new level.
    “Don’t worry about them,” Brandy said. “They were like that with me too.”
    “What do you mean?” Sophie asked.
    Trace stepped forward, his eyes flicking down toward Sophie dismissively. “You’re not the first team of superheroes Gavin’s put together, kid.”
    “
You
used to be in a superhero group?”
    “Hey, don’t act so surprised,” Trace said. “I used to be pretty good back in the day. We both were.”
    “That was a long time ago.” Brandy touched the ends of her short auburn hair, looking away.
    “Brandy? Trace? Come help set up the designers’ room,” Gavin called.
    I wanted to know more. But it would have to wait.

    Sophie invited us into her bedroom to hang out while we waited for our sessions with the Smicks.
    It looked exactly the way I remembered. A desk in the corner was piled with books; clothes were draped over the bedpost. On the wall were several framed photographs.
    “When’d you take that one?” I asked, pointing to a photo of a volcano spewing lava into the air.
    “Spring break,” Sophie said. “My dad let me tag along on his work trip when the Abominator triggered a volcano to wipe out the Pacific Northwest. While my dad and Abominator were doing their thing, I got some nice shots of the volcano exploding.”
    “The last time my mom took me to work, I stared at a filing cabinet for three hours,” Milton grumbled.
    “I had to use a zoom lens to get enough detail,” Sophie went on, suddenly caught up in her own excitement. She always got this way when she talked about photography. “But if I zoomed too much, the display would get too shaky. So I had to find just the right balance. Plus, theAbominator’s mutants were rampaging the building next door, which made it kind of tough to concentrate.”
    “It’s really nice,” I said, taking another step into the room.
    “You should see the photos my mom used to take. Before …” Sophie’s voice trailed away, but I couldn’t help filling in the blank in my mind.
Before she died …
    Sophie’s mom had been killed in a car bomb explosion. And the bomb had been planted by Phineas Vex. Just one more reason to worry that Vex was still alive, still out there somewhere. The thought of him put a halt to our conversation. Sophie gazed at her volcano photo, but from the look on her face, her mind was miles away.
    Finally, Milton broke the silence.
    “So … uh—do you guys wanna see what TV channels this window gets?”
    He picked up the remote. With the push of a button, the scenery of Sophie’s backyard (morning sunlight shining down over the Olympic-sized swimming pool) vanished instantly, replaced by a football field, with players from both teams charging toward us. Milton hit the button before the players could dog-pile Sophie’s window. The scene became a marble hall inside an art museum, then a view from the floor of the ocean, with colorful fish weaving between sea anemones, and a blue whale sweeping past in the background.
    After flipping through about fifty other scenes, we finally found something normal—a news broadcast.
    “… interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to bring you this breaking news story,” said the anchorman.“Top government officials were stunned by the defacement of three separate landmarks last night.”
    I drew in a nervous breath. I guess it was just an instinct that came with having supervillains in the family. Anytime something went horribly wrong in the world, the first thing I wondered was where my mom and dad were when it happened.
    The anchorman’s voice spoke over my thoughts. “The video we’re about to show you is bizarre and disturbing. So stay