Текст книги "M Is for Mama's Boy"

Автор книги: Michael Buckley

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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 11 страниц)

“Step into the vault, kid,” the man said.

Helpless, Duncan did as he was told. He had no idea what the weapon could do, but he was smart enough not to want to find out. Once Duncan was inside, the man leveled his weird ray gun at the boy’s chest. There was a flash of light and Gluestick felt as if he were no longer in control of his body. His feet and hands were producing the sticky film that allowed him to walk on walls at an alarming rate. It was literally pouring out of him like a garden hose, circling his feet and locking him to the floor. Within seconds he couldn’t move. He was like a mouse in a glue trap.

“Sorry, kid,” the man said, then fired his weapon at the vault itself. Duncan watched helplessly as the door closed tight, and then, with a sudden jerk, the vault plunged downward. The villain had triggered the security system. Duncan was stuck tight inside a vault that had just plummeted thirty feet below the ground.

“Do you like what you see, boss?” Albert’s voice said.

Simon was watching the action on a laptop computer in a tiny Internet café on Princes Street. The place was filled with losers writing stage plays and epic novels. Worse, the customers kept staring at him in his cloak and mask. Hadn’t they ever seen an evil mastermind before? He shrugged them off. He wouldn’t let them ruin his good time. Albert’s invention worked! With one zap, computers, machines, anything with an electronic intelligence, had been bent to his will. Best of all, it hypnotized the nanobytes inside Simon’s former friend, Duncan, disabling him.

“Most impressive,” Simon said, “but where are the . . . ” Just then he heard Flinch’s war cry over the monitor. “Look out, Albert!” he cried to the man on the screen. But it was too late. Simon watched as his hyperactive former teammate ran toward Albert at top speed, turning into a colorful blur before coming to a sudden stop. Flinch grabbed the man by one of his huge legs and lifted him off the ground like he was a marshmallow.

“I caught a bad guy! I caught a bad guy!” Flinch sang.

“Put me down,” Albert demanded, but when Flinch refused, he aimed his ray gun at the boy and fired. Flinch immediately dropped his prize and stared at his own hands in disbelief. Then, suddenly, the boy started running out of control until he slammed into a wall, face-first. He fell down, unconscious.

“What did you do to him?” a familiar voice yelled. Simon peered into the computer screen to see Matilda racing forward.

“You kids just stay back,” Albert stuttered. For a guy who wanted to be a superhero, he certainly didn’t have a lot of confidence. “Stay back!”

Matilda fired her inhalers and flew at him, kicking Albert in the head. The roly-poly man stumbled backward, struggling with his mask, which had slid down over his eyes. While he was disabled, Matilda went in for another attack, but Albert managed to fix his mask just in time to fire his weapon at her too. She fell to the floor with a painful thud.

Jackson and Ruby were next, and didn’t fare much better. As soon as they attacked, Albert shot them with the ray gun, as well.

When all four kids lay on the ground at Albert’s feet, Simon heard Ruby hiss, “So, are you another one of Heathcliff’s lackeys?”

Albert was confused. “I don’t know a Heathcliff. I work for Simon.”

“Oh, they’re the same guy. We also used to call him Choppers. He was one of us until he betrayed us and tried to destroy the world. Did he mention that to you?”

“I don’t need to know anything about him.”

“Well, you should know one thing, buddy. Your boss is a whiny crybaby filled with bitterness because he was never cool. It’s a fatal flaw and we will always beat him because of it. Unfortunately, you’re never going to get to tell him because you’re going to jail.”

“Whiny crybaby!” Simon cried. Everyone in the café stared at him but he didn’t care. “I will destroy you all! I will crush you into pulp and you will beg me for mercy but there will be none. Simon will have his revenge!”

“You ready for another root beer, kid?” the waitress asked.

Simon spun in his chair and gave her an angry look. “If you have any hope of a tip, I suggest you leave me alone. Can’t you see I’m busy?”

“Fine,” the waitress grumbled and shuffled off to another customer. Simon turned back to the café’s computer and typed furiously. The “C” and backslash keys kept sticking, victims of too many spilled chai lattes. Still, what he had seen on the video had set his mind afire with inspiration. He would use Albert’s schematics to build a weapon big enough to knock out the world’s machines and put the human race in his control. And it looked as if there was nothing Gluestick, Wheezer, Braceface, Flinch, or Pufferfish could do about it. The other upside was that he would soon have enough money to move his base of operations to a proper secret lair where he wasn’t competing with birds, chipmunks, raccoons, and cats for space, and the rest of the evil villain community would stop laughing at him.

Now, with the money he was swiping from banks, he could build a new, glorious secret headquarters from which to devise evil plans. He typed furiously at the keyboard, making notes on his evil master bathroom, the evil solarium where he would devise evil plots, and the evil meeting room with the long, evil oak table where he would intimidate his evil underlings. But nothing made him smile like the evil mirrored room where he would taunt his enemies, causing them to believe there were thousands of him. He had seen that in a movie and it was supercool.

“The first thing I’m going to build in my new secret lair is an Internet café where I am the only customer,” he said loudly enough for the other customers to hear. “I will have robot waitresses who are not so incompetent and absolutely no one working on a blog.”

OOOOHHHHH! WASN’T THAT

EXCITING? YOU KNOW, A LOT

OF KIDS READ THAT AND FREAK

OUT. I’M SERIOUS. THE LAST

TEN CANDIDATES HAD TO BE

TAKEN TO A MENTAL HOSPITAL

FOR SOME “RELAXATION.”

ANYWAY, THE POWERS THAT BE

TOOK A LOOK AT YOUR CODE-

BREAKING SKILLS AND DECIDED

THAT IT WAS TIME TO TAKE

YOU TO THE NEXT LEVEL.

SO I’M GOING TO TEACH YOU

ABOUT SOMETHING CALLED A

SUBSTITUTION CIPHER WHEEL.

THIS IS A CODE METHOD THAT

GOES ALL THE WAY BACK TO THE

TIME OF JULIUS CAESAR, WHO,

WITH HIS TOGA, SANDALS,

AND LEAF HEADBAND, WAS

A TOTAL B.C. NERD.

HERE’S HOW IT WORKS: YOU HAVE

TWO CIRCLES MADE FROM THE

LETTERS OF THE ALPHABET.

TRACE OR COPY THE CIRCLES

ONTO A PIECE OF PAPER AND CUT OUT THE CIRCLES.

OR, BETTER YET, CUT THIS BOOK

UP NOW AND GO OUT AND BUY

ANOTHER ONE TO READ—THAT’S

EXCELLENT FOR SALES.

OH, BUT THIS IS AN EBOOK. NEVER MIND!

ALL RIGHT. NOW PAY ATTENTION,

’CAUSE THIS IS WHERE IT GETS

TRICKY. YOU MAKE COPIES OF THE

CIRCLES AND THEN CUT THEM OUT.

TAKE THE LITTLE CIRCLE AND PUT

IT ON TOP OF THE BIG CIRCLE

SO THAT ONE IS INSIDE THE

OTHER. GOT IT? GOOD.

NOW YOU CHOOSE A “KEY LETTER”

FOR THE SMALLER CIRCLE. THIS

LETTER WOULD BE SOMETHING ONLY

YOU AND THE RECIPIENT OF YOUR

MESSAGE WOULD KNOW. IF YOU HAVE

A KEY LETTER, LINE IT UP WITH

THE “A” ON THE BIG CIRCLE.

THE LETTERS ON THE BIG

CIRCLE ARE THE ACTUAL

ALPHABET AND THE ONES ON

THE INNER CIRCLE ARE YOUR

CODE ALPHABET. SELECT THE

CODE LETTERS THAT LINE UP

WITH THE LETTERS OF

YOUR SECRET MESSAGE

AND WRITE THEM DOWN.

HERE, LET’S TRY. I’M ASSIGNING

THE LETTER “M” AS MY KEY

LETTER. SEE IF YOU CAN

DECIPHER MY SUPERSECRET

MESSAGE.

EQDUAGEXK, PA EAYQFTUZS MNAGF KAGD RQQF.

FTQK EYQXX XUWQ M OAYNUZMFUAZ AR QSSE MZP

RMDFE. KAG’DQ XGOWK FA TMHQ M RDUQZP XUWQ

YQ ITA IUXX FQXX KAG ITQZ KAG’DQ RGZWK.

SORRY, BUT YOU CLEARLY

AREN’T GETTING THE MESSAGE.

Duncan heard something cracking above him and watched as the metal ceiling turned from black to red to white-hot. He quickly realized that someone was using a blowtorch to cut through the vault—probably Matilda and her enhanced inhalers. He wished he could free himself from his own glue, but all he could do was watch. It was all very embarrassing.

Finally, a portion of the roof fell to the ground and Agent Brand poked his head inside. He stared at Duncan for a moment and frowned. The man’s disappointment felt like a punch in the belly.

“We’ll get you out of here soon, son,” Brand said.

Duncan quietly wondered if it wouldn’t have been better to be trapped underground forever.

“Gluestick, did you hear me?” Ms. Holiday said. She and Agent Brand were watching him through a glass window in an adjacent room back at the Playground as a bank of green lights danced across his body. “Scans are showing that every nanobyte in your body has been infected with a computer virus that is destroying them one by one. Two-thirds of them are already off-line and the rest will be gone within the hour.”

“Which means what exactly?” Duncan said.

“You’re powerless,” Benjamin said as the tiny orb hovered about the boy’s face. “At least for the time being. You see, the nanobytes that give you your abilities are nothing more than microscopic computers. In your case, they produce the adhesive in your skin that makes you sticky. The ray gun that was fired at you basically rewrote their code, causing many of them to burn themselves out. The rest are acting most peculiar—like they are obeying completely different instructions.”

“I know how the nanobytes work,” Duncan said. He could feel a panic rising inside of him. “What are we going to do about it?”

“Gluestick, you and the rest of the team will have to have the nanobytes extracted and then we can put you through the upgrade process once more.”

Duncan sighed. “I shouldn’t have just barged in when I had no idea what or who was waiting for me.”

“Duncan, you’re being too hard on yourself,” Ms. Holiday said. “You were concerned for the bank manager and—”

Agent Brand interrupted. “Actually, it was a major blunder.”

Ms. Holiday bit her lip. “That is not helpful,” she whispered.

“Gluestick has been trained by the best. He knows better than to race into the unknown,” Brand said, standing his ground.

“How are the others?” Duncan asked. “Are they OK?”

“They’ve already gone through the scans and the results have been the same, Duncan,” the librarian replied.

“You don’t think Heathcliff’s found some way to. . . you know, hypnotize machines the way he can people and animals, do you?” Duncan asked.

“It’s our job to find out,” Brand said. “When will the team be ready?”

“Three days,” Benjamin said.

“Three days!” Brand cried. “Simon might control the world in three days!”

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to remove all of the nanobytes in each of the operatives.”

“But Benjamin, we’ve taken the upgrades out of people before,” Ms. Holiday said.

“Last year we took them out of Jackson and put them back in a couple days later,” Duncan reminded them. “It didn’t take three days for him to be back online.”

“Jackson’s nanobytes were receptive to my commands,” Benjamin explained. “I asked them to leave and then asked them to return. The nanobytes in your body aren’t listening. I’m going to have to hunt them down, one by one, until they are all collected. If I were to leave even one behind, it could infect the new ones. I can, however, reinstall the nasal implants that link the team with me.”

Brand growled. “Get to work, Benjamin.” He stormed out of the room, leaving Ms. Holiday alone to look in on Duncan.

“OK, well, don’t worry, Gluestick,” Ms. Holiday said. “Just relax and we’ll have you back to fighting shape in no time.”

It took all Duncan’s strength to smile back. Inside he was feeling embarrassed, depressed, and foolish.

Duncan spent much of the day lying on a table inside the upgrade room having his nanobytes removed. He hadn’t really noticed before, but he could feel them inside him. It was a subtle sensation, and not unpleasant, but as more and more of them were extracted, he felt more and more empty.

“While we are here, perhaps you would like to give me some information about your odd attacker,” Benjamin said. “Perhaps we can put together a sketch from your details.”

“Well, he was about five seven, maybe five eight, though his boots might have given him an inch or two.”

Benjamin began to spin, and a million particles of light filled the room. Suddenly, there was a stick figure as tall as a man standing before him.

“Anything else?”

“He had kind of let himself go,” Duncan said, pulling his T-shirt down over his own exposed belly. “He probably weighed three hundred pounds.”

Suddenly the stick figure expanded into the shape of an obese man.

“Any facial features?”

“I didn’t see much,” Duncan said. “He was wearing a black mask that covered his face and hair. Oh, yeah. He had red eyebrows. He must be a redhead.”

The stick figure grew red hair. Then a black mask was placed over its face, showing only the eyes.

“Eye color?”

“I don’t know,” Duncan said. “It happened so fast.”

“We have some security footage, but we never got a shot of his face. Let me see if I can combine your description with what the cameras captured,” Benjamin said. Suddenly, the round stick figure had hands and fingers. His costume was black and green, with a cape and a cursor symbol on the chest. Benjamin added boots and gloves and a belt buckle, but the face was not there.

“It’s not a lot.” Duncan sighed.

“Let me know if you remember anything else,” the orb chirped. “I’ll send this to Mr. Brand. As for your nanobytes, I think we’re through for the day. Go home and get some rest.”

Duncan exited through the lockers and walked down the school halls as students spilled out of classrooms, headed for their buses. He felt small and weak. When he was full of superpower, he had strolled along without a care. Sure, a school bully might confront him, but he had always taken this in stride. After all, he was an international spy. He traveled the world. He could stick to walls. His double life had always been the great equalizer. No matter how many wedgies he received, he could smile with the knowledge that he was special. Now he was average. . . again.

Flinch met him outside. They decided to skip the bus ride and walk home.

“This must be very hard on you,” Duncan said to his friend. “Your upgrades not only give you abilities, they help control your hyperactivity.”

Flinch looked visibly shaky. “Benjamin said that I should stay away from candy and soda until I’m back online. You have no idea how hard it is not to stuff my face with graham crackers right now.”

“I’m sorry. It was my fault we got zapped,” Duncan said.

“You’re being crazy, D. You can’t blame yourself because you were surprised. We all thought we’d find Simon, not some giant tub of a dude having a midlife crisis with a ray gun. You did exactly what I would have done. Plus, you bought us a three-day vacation. It’ll give Jackson a chance to catch up on his reports.”

“Three days of being regular,” Duncan said. The thought gave him the jitters.

“I know how I can cheer you up,” Flinch said. “You can invite me over for dinner. I am an amazing dinner guest and I know how much the Creature likes me.”

Duncan wanted to laugh, but his dismal mood hung over him like a rain cloud.

Dinner at Duncan’s house was always a noisy affair. His family enjoyed discussing their days, usually all at once. There was a genuine excitement about being together. Aiah told them about a family she was working with who was trying to get out of a homeless shelter. Avery talked and talked about the Aston Martin he had worked on that afternoon, and how exhilarating it was to take it for a test drive. “I felt like a spy,” he said, smiling at his son. The Creature complained about teachers, boys, girls, her friends, her enemies, Duncan, her parents, and everyone else who crossed her path.

“And what about you two?” Aiah asked as she snatched the bag of peppermints out of Flinch’s hand and put another scoop of lima beans on his plate. “I know you can’t tell me everything, but did anything exciting happen today?”

Duncan and Flinch shared a look.

“Same old same old, Mrs. Dewey,” Flinch said. “Just another boring day at school.”

“Oh, I hate when you say that,” Aiah sighed. “It always makes me think something dangerous happened and you just aren’t allowed to talk about it.”

“I’m sure they both got wedgied and shoved into lockers,” the Creature said. “Same old story for members of the nerd herd.”

“Be nice, Tanisha,” Avery said.

“Relax, Dad,” the Creature said. “Flinch and dumb-dumb here have superpowers. I’m sure they can handle my insults.”

Duncan and Flinch shared another uncomfortable look.

After dinner, the boys insisted on loading the dishwasher. Duncan couldn’t wait to get his hands on the remote control. Pressing its buttons gave him comfort after such a depressing day. He typed in a code and soon a robotic arm was snatching dirty dishes off the dining room table, rinsing them, and inserting them into the slots of the dishwasher. Then it closed the door and the machine started its cleaning cycle.

Avery watched the action from the kitchen table. He was scanning the classified section of the newspaper for auto parts. He had been restoring a 1968 Ford Mustang convertible since before Duncan was born. It took up most of the garage. Besides a paint job, it was nearly complete. Avery wanted every part to be from the original make, and they weren’t easy to find. Some weekends he spent hours digging through the local junkyard for the finishing touches—rearview mirrors, factory hubcabs, and an original AM radio.

“You and your machines,” he said now with a sigh. “You want to see a real machine, look out in the garage. The Mustang is a machine made with love and care. There’s a heart to it.”

“That’s true, but can the Mustang do this?” Duncan asked as he pushed a few more buttons on his remote. Suddenly, the cabinets opened and a robotic hand opened the dishwasher and tossed the clean dishes into the air. They landed in the cabinets with perfect aim and without a chip. Everything was put away in a flash.

Avery rolled his eyes. “You kids are never going to understand. I can appreciate a fancy gadget. All I’m saying is, don’t let all these gizmos make you lazy—both in the body and the mind.” He snatched up his paper and headed off to the living room.

“He’s not a big fan of the technology, huh?” Flinch said as he searched the freezer for some ice cream.

“I think he’d prefer it if we lived in a log cabin without any electricity,” Duncan said. He handed Flinch a spoon and the boy went to work on a tub of orange sherbet he found behind a bag of peas. “Want to see if there are any bad guys up to no good?”

“Duh!”

The boys raced down the hallway to Duncan’s room and closed the door tight behind them. Duncan reached into his pocket and took out Benjamin. The orb glowed bright blue, then floated out of his hand.

“What can I do for you, agents?”

“Activate Surveillance Room,” Duncan said, and suddenly the bedroom furniture vanished and the supercomputer reappeared. TV monitors displayed images from around the globe.

“It’s pretty cool that Brand lets you take one of the Benjamin orbs home with you,” Flinch said.

“Actually, it was Ms. Holiday’s idea. She’s been encouraging me to spend my free time looking for trouble around the world. Plus, Benjamin is great at helping me with homework. So, Benjamin, any bad guys doing some bad stuff out there?”

“It appears you have one right outside,” Benjamin said. “Look!”

Duncan looked at one of the monitors. It revealed a scene from right outside of his house. There, standing in the backyard by the garage, was a tall teenage boy, probably close to eighteen years old. He was leaning against the Deweys’ garage door.

“Who’s that?” Flinch asked.

Duncan shrugged but kept watching until a moment later he spotted Tanisha sneaking out the back door. The boy leaned down and kissed her.

“Oh, I think I just threw up in my mouth a little,” Flinch said. “Who in this world would want to kiss the Creature?”

“Maybe he’s blind,” Duncan said.

Then the teenager reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He passed one to Tanisha, who lit it and took some puffs. Duncan’s jaw dropped open.

“What should we do? Tell your parents?” Flinch asked.

“No, we’ll handle this,” Duncan said.

“Are you forgetting how mean your sister can be? The Creature is like a rottweiler!”

Despite Flinch’s concerns, he marched outside with Duncan. They found Tanisha and her friend in a tight embrace.

“Put out the cigarette,” Duncan demanded.

“Oh, hey little man. No need to get so angry,” Tanisha’s boyfriend said. “I’m TJ.”

Duncan ignored him. “Tanisha, put it out or I’m going to tell Dad.”

“Who is this kid, Tanisha? Your own private bodyguard or something?”

“He’s nobody and he’s about to go back inside and mind his own business,” Tanisha said, flashing Duncan an angry look.

“I mean it, Tanisha,” Duncan said.

“Yo, little man,” TJ said. “How about you go play some video games, and leave your sister and me alone?”

“OK, your call,” Duncan said to his sister. “Daaaaaad!”

TJ leaped in front of Duncan. “Now that’s not nice. Didn’t your parents teach you about tattling, little man?”

“My name is Duncan and my parents taught me to look out for bad influences and ugly people. You happen to be both so you’re easy to spot.”

TJ grabbed him by the collar. “You better watch your mouth.”

“TJ! Let him go,” Tanisha demanded.

Flinch stepped up to the much bigger boy. “I’m giving you three seconds to let him go,” he said. “After that I’m bringing the pain.”

TJ laughed and snatched Flinch by the collar. He held the boys close to his face. “You getting smart with me too?”

Duncan knew exactly how to handle TJ. He wouldn’t come around again if he spent two days glued to the roof. Duncan concentrated to activate his nanobytes then remembered—he was powerless!

“One,” Flinch said.

“Flinch, leave him alone,” Tanisha begged.

“Leave me alone?” TJ shouted. “Babe, I’m three times their size.”

“Two.”

“Now, let’s get something straight. You’re going back into the house and you’re not going to say a word.”

“Three.”

In a flash, Flinch had kicked TJ in the shin. When the older boy dropped the two spies, Flinch grabbed his wrist, twisting his arm behind his back until the guy screamed. Flinch followed this with a punch to TJ’s sternum, and when the older boy bent over to catch his breath, Flinch climbed on his back, wrapped his arms around his throat, and put pressure on his carotid artery. TJ struggled for a moment, like a fish washed up on the sand, then slid to the ground—sound asleep.

“Why didn’t you help me?” Flinch asked Duncan.

“What was I going to do? My upgrades are offline,” he said.

“So are mine!” Flinch complained. “We’ve both been trained in mixed martial arts, dude.”

The Creature was even more incensed than Flinch. She tossed her cigarette on the ground and stomped over to Duncan. He could see her rage and tried to explain.

“This guy is a loser—”

“No! The only loser around here is you. I don’t need your protection and I don’t want it! Take your nanobutts and mind your own business.”

“They’re called nano bytes, Tanisha. I know you’re angry, but please keep your voice down—”

“What would happen if I shouted it for everyone to hear? What would happen if I screamed that my nerdy little brother is actually a spy? Would they drag me away? Put me in prison?”

“Yes,” Flinch said.

Tanisha hesitated, then said furiously, “You should be worried about yourself, Duncan. You might be some national hero, but around here you’re a misfit.”

“What do you mean ‘around here’?”

“You’re nothing like us, Duncan,” she cried. “Who are you like? Dad? Mom? Me? You’re a circus freak who shares our house—with your secret life and your stupid gizmos. Don’t you see how Mom and Dad look at you? It’s like you’re from another planet. It’s because of you we moved to this stupid neighborhood, too. Haven’t you noticed that no one within a mile looks like us? Haven’t you noticed that I don’t have any friends here? It’s all because you have to be different. You have to be special. The rest of us are fine just being us, but Duncan needs the whole world to notice him.”

Tanisha pushed past the boys and went into the house.

“You shouldn’t have been smoking!” Duncan shouted.

She slammed the door behind her, leaving Duncan and Flinch alone with TJ’s unconscious lump of a body.

“The Creature has spoken,” Flinch said.

Duncan shook his head and looked through the back window at his family. Avery was still searching the paper, Aiah was reading a book, and Tanisha was quietly crying in front of the kitchen sink. Her words felt like heavy weights his body could not carry.

“She’s right.”

“No, muchacho.”

“I’m not like them,” Duncan said. “I’m much smarter than everyone in my family. Half the time they don’t understand a word I’m saying. And then there’s all the spy stuff on top of that. They have no idea what to make of me.”

“Your family loves you,” Flinch said. “The Creature is just angry she got caught.”

“Look around, Flinch. My whole family was uprooted from the neighborhood my parents grew up in just so I can get a better education. No one asked her if she wanted to come. No wonder she’s angry. She lost her friends, everyone she knows. She’s alone, all because her brother is some supposed genius.”

Flinch shook his head but offered no argument.

“I have to face facts. I’m a nerd at school and a nerd at home,” Duncan said. “Worse, I don’t even have a cool secret life anymore. Brand isn’t going to send any of us out without our upgrades.”

Dejected, Duncan sat down on the stoop, and Flinch joined him. The boys were quiet for a long time until they were both startled by a loud bang in the neighbor’s yard. They rushed to the fence to see what was going on. What they saw was a thirty-seven-year-old man floundering in a pile of garbage bags. He had red hair and one too many chins. The poor guy had clearly stumbled into his trash can and sent its contents everywhere. He cursed as he dragged himself to his feet.

“Well, it could be worse,” Flinch said. “You could be this guy.”

“Mrs. Nesbitt’s son, Albert,” Duncan said. “I think.”

“What do you mean you think?”

“I’ve never seen him before. He lives in her basement and rarely comes outside. Some of the neighborhood kids think he doesn’t even exist. He’s like Bigfoot.”

“He’s a disaster,” Flinch said, but when the man took a candy bar from his pocket and unwrapped it, the boy changed his tune. “Though he has excellent taste in chocolate.”

Flinch looked at Duncan. “Didn’t you say the guy at the bank in Scotland was overweight and had red hair?” Flinch asked.

Duncan stared at the figure. When he tried to imagine Albert in a black-and-green supersuit, he realized the resemblance was uncanny.

“Flinch, I think my neighbor is a supervillain,” Duncan whispered.