See part one for disclaimers. Hope you enjoyed it.

4

S.O.S.

Toxin was scum, but, as it turned out, he wasn’t a liar.

Somehow, despite the pounding headache and the fact that his head was spinning like he’d just taken five turns on the ‘Scrambler’ ride at the Dakota Fair, Richie made it back to the gas station in one piece. He discarded the cracked helmet and then set to work with Backpack. Toxin had mentioned doctors, so Richie started with the hospital files. The robot hacked into the records of every hospital and prison hospital in the city and county, calling up information on any patients---particularly metahumans---who had shown unknown toxins in their bloodstreams. The files scrolled across the computer screen in a blur. He blinked, trying to bring the words into focus. C’mon, Richie, concentrate.

Two files matched the parameters ‘unknown toxin’ and ‘metahuman patient’. Both were in the prison hospital’s computer system. Both were treated for a reaction to an unknown type of venom from, according to the patients, an unknown metahuman source. Standard treatments, and a few impressive treatments that the doctors had improvised on the spot, had failed.

Okay, so I’m screwed. Good to know.

Richie rested his head against his hands, closing his eyes, trying to think what to do next. His thoughts were torn in several different directions at once: He thought about dying above all else, and not for the first time, either. Virgil was the level headed one on their team. He’d considered dangers. Richie hadn’t thought about the perils that came along with the superhero business at first. He had leaped in with both feet and no backwards glance, first helping Virgil learn to use his powers, then again when adopting his own ‘Gear’ identity after his own mutation.

However, Richie’d had plenty of time while laid up in the hospital after Jimmy had shot him to consider the subject. He’d thought about it again when that psycho computer virus had him under its control, when he’d thought sure as anything that the Justice League would vaporize him along with the virus in order to save the world. He’d come to the conclusion that the idea of dying sucked. No way around it. There was nothing to be said for it. If anything good could come of it, it was that, at least, dying in the line of superhero duty, saving Dakota if not the world, would have some sort of meaning. Dying from poison from a goober like Toxin was different. It wouldn’t mean a thing, and he wasn’t saving anyone. Toxin would go on to his next victim—probably Virgil or Sharon.

Virg would be the one who’d have to explain to Richie’s folks. Knowing Virgil, he’d feel compelled to confess everything that happened from the Big Bang on, in which case there was little doubt Richie’s father would blame Virgil for everything---for being in the middle of the toxic explosion, for going to Richie after the explosion while still doused with the chemical mutagens, for leaving Richie on his own to deal with Toxin.

Then there was Virgil’s future as Static. He had barely gotten over what happened with Jimmy. Richie had no idea what Virgil would do, but he was going to blame himself if he came back from outer space to find out his best friend was gone. He’d go after Toxin, that was for sure, but then what? Either Toxin would kill him, and if he didn’t, what then? Virgil could be Static even without a sidekick. He had done it before; he could do it again. Would he though? The thought bothered Richie almost as much as the thought of dying. And what if he did? What happened when the next Toxin came along and Virgil took him on with no one to watch his back?

Richie forced himself to stop that morbid train of thought. He wasn’t dead yet. He could sit here throwing self-pity parties and recording good-bye messages or he could try to save himself.

He rubbed his eyes, willing his mind to clear and his attention back to the problem at hand. This wasn’t poison coursing through his veins; it was venom. Toxin needed anti-venom. It was all a matter of basic chemistry…well, basic chemistry for a Bang Baby with a super-sized knack for science. On a good day, he should be able to crank out an anti-venom in his sleep.

On a good day.

It was a Herculean effort, but Richie pushed himself up off the chair. He began searching the drawers and cabinets, rummaging through piles of tools and computer parts he’d stashed there until he found what he was looking for: A box of glass slides and a microscope, all scavenged from the dumpsters when St. Vincent Hospital replaced its old equipment. Richie had improved the microscope to feed images directly to Backpack originally to help him when he worked on the complicated micro-technology of his gadgets and gear. The effort to lug the box back to the countertop drained him. He slumped back into the chair, taking a minute to catch his breath.

It took some time, with more than a few stops to wait until his vision stopped swimming and spinning, but he managed to get the ‘scope connected to Backpack and the sample of the venom he’d saved the previous night scanned into the robot’s memory. Backpack obediently spit out a printed breakdown of the chemical composition. Richie squinted at the columns of numbers. The digits blurred out of focus.

Backpack set up a racket, its alarm blaring a warning. He wished the robot would shut up. The noise wasn’t helping his effort to make sense of the numbers.

It was just dawning on him to shut the alarm off when the countertop suddenly came rushing up to meet him and the world went dark.

* *

Backpack’s protocols kicked in at the first signs of unstable health from his programmer. That was, after all, his first directive: Preserve the health of his programmer and, of equal importance, preserve the health of programmer’s friend, Static.

Programmer’s vital signs were unacceptable. Programmer was in jeopardy. Default one: Contact Static. Option One: Contact by shock-box. Backpack transmitted the appropriate signal.

No response. Option Two: Contact by personal communication device ‘pager’. Backpack again transmitted the appropriate signal.

No response. Default Two: Contact with Static not option. Contact emergency personnel permitted. Backpack tapped into the phone lines and began to dial the pre-programmed three digits…

Contact by communication device ‘pager’: Response received. Backpack discontinued the phone call to 9-1-1. Transmitting text message to personal communication device ‘pager’.

* *

“Foley, if you left that computer running, so help me, you’re going to start kicking in on our electric bills. This isn’t the cyber café…” Sharon was mumbling as she pounded up the stairs of her house in search of whatever was beeping. It sounded like a computer and it was definitely coming from Virgil’s room.

It wasn’t the computer. So where is that beeping coming from? Sharon frowned at the landfill that was her brother’s room---how she was going to locate the source of the noise in this pile of scattered clothes, books, and computer parts, she didn’t know. It sounded like a pager. Probably Foley trying to call him. No doubt Virgil had forgotten to take his pager when he left on his field trip. That wasn’t a shock---whenever her brother was focused on doing something, little things like the rest of the world got tuned out, and he’d been so preoccupied with this last-minute trip you might have sworn he was going off on a secret mission to save the world instead of taking a tour of some bottle factory.

The pager wasn’t shutting itself off after a few tones; it had been beeping for three minutes. Sharon would have left the thing run until it drained its battery, except that the noise was grating on her already shredded nerves. She found it, after much rummaging, tucked inside Virgil’s canvas backpack. I don’t remember Virgil getting a pager this fancy. Looks like NASA built it…how much did this cost? How’d he pay for this with his allowance?

“Sharon? Everything okay?” Dad called from downstairs.

“Yeah. Virgil just forgot his pager.”

“Don’t know how you could find it in that mess,” he answered.

She fumbled with the unlabeled buttons, trying to find the off switch. She pressed a red button and the beeping obediently stopped. A text message scrolled across the tiny screen. Sharon didn’t mean to read it, but three digits within the message caught her eye: 911. In spite of her best intentions, she read the text display.

She read it again.

And again.

This could not mean what she thought it meant. She had to be misinterpreting it. Yes, no doubt she was just reading too much into it, she had too much mut---metahuman---villains and superheroes on the brain because of Reilly. Whoever it was, they were playing a prank on Virgil, or Virgil had left the pager just to play a prank on her, in which case she would have to kill him when he got home. There had to be a reasonable explanation for the message scrolling across her brother’s pager.

Only one way to find out.

She nearly collided with her father as she ran through the hallway. He ducked out of the way. “Hey, in a hurry?”

“I---forgot something at the youth center. My files. Got to run back and get them.” Yeah, that sounded reasonable. She ran to the bathroom, dug a box out of the cabinet beneath the sink, and shoved it into her purse before he could see it and start asking questions.

“Do you need a ride?”

Sharon shook her head. “No, thanks, I’ll drive.” She was glad she hadn’t let Kim tell him what happened with Cates, or he’d have never let her out of the house alone. Kim had rode home with her, but since Reilly had been hauled to jail by the police, it had been easy to convince her not to hang around once Sharon’s father had come home.

What if Cates escaped? The possibility momentarily halted her in her tracks, but only for a moment. Then, she ran out the door, Cates---on the loose or in jail---be damned.

* *

In her haste, Sharon couldn’t be blamed for taking no notice of the police cruiser parked down the block. She didn’t feel the eyes of the figure in the driver’s seat track her movements as she left the house and climbed into her car. And from that distance, it would have been impossible for her to see the two glassy-eyed uniformed officers lying semi-conscious in the backseat, sprawled atop the banner that had only an hour ago been binding the mutant who now drove the vehicle, or the telltale metabreed slime that doused their faces… betraying exactly the reason that the mutant had been able to seize control of their vehicle without their raising a weapon or fist in resistance.

As Sharon put her car in gear and sped away, Toxin's massive head turned towards his passengers. “Out,” he barked, using his tail to smash through the grate that separated the rear seat from the driver’s compartment and to open the rear passenger door. “And you never saw me,” Reilly added.

The officers nodded blankly.

With that, Toxin put the cruiser in gear and sped away in the direction Sharon had gone.

* *

The human shadow known as Ebon was gaining. Gear threw the zap caps at the dark, human-shaped blob, but the caps passed right through his insubstantial form. There was laughter from the shadow. “Well, look here, fellas, we got us a mini-MacGyver,” Ebon sneered. “That all you got, kid? Tinker-toys?”

Gear ducked into an alley trying to escape the shadow form. He found himself face to face with Hotstreak. Gear fired the taser pen. Hotstreak raised a hand and vaporized the taser---and nearly Gear’s entire arm---in a ball of flame.

“Gonna have to do better than that,” he chided. Hotstreak let out a stream of fire that scorched the very air around Gear, making it hard to breathe. He stumbled back, trying to escape the burning air, to breathe. Hotstreak followed. Around the metabreed fire-starter, buildings erupted into flames as the occupants ran for their lives. “Lots of fancy new gizmos, same loser underneath. It’s almost not worth my time to finish you off,” Hotstreak called as Gear retreated.

He stumbled onto the sidewalk and sank to his knees, trying to draw a breath. Langdon Hill and Steve the cameraman were standing in the street, recording the whole thing. “We’ll call this story ‘Pseudo-Superhero: Static Substitute Sinks City.’”

Gear gasped, “Doing…best I can.”

Hill shook his head. “Cut tape, Steve. Let’s go find a real story.”

“Richie!” A familiar voice shouted from above. Gear lifted his head and spied the flying disc, surrounded with the electromagnetic glow from the power that sent it sailing through the air. Standing on the disc, Static brought it to hover above Gear. “What happened? I haven’t even been gone a day and look at this place! If you can’t handle a couple little Bang Babies---“

Gear spotted it before Static---the massive, scorpion-shaped form appeared out of the smoke of the burning buildings and lunged for Static. Gear tried to warn him, but couldn’t catch his breath long enough to form a word. It came out as a feeble squeak, and then Toxin was all over Static. He knocked Virgil from the flying disk with a sweep of his scorpion tail. Static hit the pavement, unconscious. Toxin hovered over him, ready to finish him off.

Gear dove for Toxin, ready to put himself between the mutant and Virgil. That was when the half-bird Bang Baby, Talon, swooped from the rooftop of the burning building. She let out a cry and wrapped her wings around Gear, trying to smother him with a chokehold. She pinned his arms at his sides when he reached for a zap cap.

Toxin forgot the vulnerable Static and turned his attention to Gear. “Have the sense to know when to die, kid. Here, let me speed this up…” Cates raised his stinger and drove it into Gear’s forearm. A burning sensation radiated from the puncture wound. “That help, Foley?”

“Foley!”

The shout would have made him jump out of his skin if he weren’t so tired. Jolted awake, he blearily found himself doing a face plant at his worktable in the gas station. Backpack still displayed the information he’d downloaded from the hospitals and the scans of Cates’ toxin. The burning radiating from his injured arm wasn’t from Toxin's stinger---it was from a small needle and syringe that someone had just used to inject something into him. He jerked his arm away and sat up.

Sharon Hawkins was standing beside the worktable, holding an epinephrine syringe in her hand. The look on her face could have frozen a lava flow.

Sharon?! Richie was instantly alert.

That was impossible. Why was she there? How could she have found their HQ? She had called him ‘Foley’, not ‘Gear’. Richie spied his helmet, his disguise, lying discarded on the countertop and groaned. So much for secret identities. Judging by her expression, Sharon was quickly putting together the pieces of the puzzle.

“How---?” he started.

Sharon pulled an object from her pocket and handed it to him. It was Virgil’s pager, the one Richie had rebuilt. The one Virgil hadn’t taken to Am’prael Nine because he was afraid the atmosphere of the alien planet would fry its circuits…the one he’d obviously had left in his bedroom instead of in the safety of their HQ in his rush to rendezvous with the Justice League.

“Virgil didn’t get your message. I did,” she answered.

“What?” Message? He hadn’t sent a message.

He read the text message on the pager. Backpack. The robot must have sent an alert to Static, just like he was programmed to do, when Richie passed out at the computer. “Aw, man…” He groaned, wondering who was going to kill him first—Toxin with his poison, Sharon, Virgil when he got home and heard their secret was effectively blown, or their parents when Sharon told them the truth about ‘Static’ and ‘Gear’.

The same question was going through Sharon’s mind, except in her case, she was debating whether to strangle him on the spot or wait until her father got hold of him and Virgil---and she was pretty sure at that point that Virgil had to be “Static”.

Just to confirm her suspicions, she asked, “So, if you’re ‘Gear’, I assume my idiot brother is your pal, ‘Static’? ” If possible, he looked even more miserable at that question. She’d take that as a ‘yes’. This was too much to process on top of everything else that had happened in the last eighteen hours. “That explains how you just happened to show up at the park last night…explains a lot of things actually.”

She grabbed a broken stool and sat beside him at the worktable. She carefully replaced the epinephrine syringe back into the first aid kit she’d brought from him. Then, for lack of an idea what else to do, she pulled out some gauze and started bandaging the wound on his arm. Sharon was shaking her head. “And I used to think that Lois Lane was a skank for never recognizing Superman just because he was wearing glasses.”

“Superman?” he repeated.

Sharon quirked an eyebrow at him. “In your case, more like Clark Kent.” That deflated him rather quickly. “You want to tell me how you two got yourselves in the middle of the Big Bang?”

“Long story,” he said.

“And is Virgil really on a field trip right now?”

“Not exactly.”

“Where is he, then? Exactly?”

He wished she’d stop asking questions. It felt like it was taking all of his energy just to try to talk and it wasn’t helping his headache. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

Probably not, she thought. “I hope he’s in better shape than you are right now, Foley. I don’t know what you two were thinking…these aren’t cartoon bad guys like in those comic books you two are so fascinated with. You two are lucky you aren’t---”

“’Roadkill?’”

“This isn’t a joke! Dad’s going to ground Virgil ‘til he graduates from college when he finds out---he’ll probably ground you too...”

Richie had the sense to look alarmed. “Can’t…tell anyone, Sharon…please,” he pleaded.

She dropped the interrogation out of pity---he looked like crap, no two ways about it, though somewhat improved from when she’d picked her way into the run-down old service station and found him. There’d be plenty of time to clobber him later. “We’ll talk about it when you’re feeling better. I’m not promising anything.” Sharon finished with the bandage. “That’s all I can do. You feeling better?”

“No,” he said wearily. It wasn’t completely true---the injection had helped clear his head somewhat, had made it somewhat easier to breathe. “Epinephrine?” he asked, glancing at the syringe.

“Every volunteer at the youth center has to learn how to use it, just in case. Bee stings and food allergies and all that,” she explained.

“But why did you--” he started.

“I can read, you know.” She pointed to Backpack and the scrolling information on the computer screen, reading from the files displayed there: “ ‘Initial injections of epinephrine delayed progression of the toxin in early stages..’. It’s been a long time since my last biology class. The rest of this stuff is way over my head. You know what all those medical jargon and chemical breakdowns mean?”

He gave her a look that said ‘Of course’.

She shook her head. “Last time I checked, chemistry and biology were not your best subjects.” Sharon glanced at the robot computer, considering it and the array of mechanical devices scattered around this ‘hideout’ Foley and Virgil had thrown together. “And you didn’t learn to build all these gadgets of yours in the Dakota public school system. So, what, the Big Bang supercharged your I.Q.?”

“Something like that.”

It was on her lips to make a wisecrack, but she resisted the urge. “I guess I know who to volunteer to tutor the kids at the youth center. Maybe if one of our city ‘superheroes’ were teaching, the kids might actually stay awake for a class. I’ll sign you up for four weekends.”

Richie shook his head at the idea, then winced at the pain the movement generated.

“You need to go to the hospital like I told you to last night. I’ll drive.” Sharon decided.

She stood up, but he didn’t move.

“Didn’t do much good for the last two guys Toxin stung,” he muttered.

“‘Toxin'?”

“Just my Bang Baby name for Reilly.”

Sharon had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. “What do you mean ‘the last two guys’?”

He gestured to the files on the screen. She finished reading what she could interpret of the medical terminology, not quite sure what all of it meant, save for the final bit of information: Times of death. “I don’t understand why---I mean, Reilly used that venom on me, and I’m fine.”

“See, right here…” Richie pointed to a passage that was mostly related to chemistry. “…venom impairs neural processes in normal people. Just makes them a bit suggestible. Chemical…hypnosis. The…immune system breaks it down fast. But in…metabreeds, it attacks mutated DNA and---”

“---and creates toxins as a by-product.” Sharon finished, filling in the blanks. “You are in trouble, Foley.”

“No kidding.”

Sharon slumped against the worktable. She was silent for several long minutes before shaking her head. “Uh-uh, no. Not acceptable.” She went into her best lecture mode. “See, Foley, you’re Virgil’s best friend---you’re practically his brother. And even though I could use a break from the video games and the all-night DVD parties and the pizza boxes everywhere, not to mention covering the toilet with cellophane and those other stupid pranks you two love, well, if something happens to you, he’s going to be moping around, spending all his time around the house sulking and driving me nuts, and Dad will be expecting me to be all sympathetic and supportive…I won’t have it. Then, Virgil would probably get himself clobbered fighting Bang Babies by himself, and the next girl Reilly goes after might not have a supergeek to help her…so it’s not going to go down this way. If you’re some biochemistry whiz now and you know how this venom works, can’t you figure out how to make an antivenin? An 'anti-venom'?”

“That’s what…was trying to figure out…before you got here.” Richie turned back to the computer and tapped at the keys a bit. “Toxins..slowing me down…a bit.” He gave her a look as she prepared a retort. “Don’t…say it.”

“Fine, I won’t touch that one.” Sharon watched him, wishing she could do something besides watch. “How can I help?” she asked finally.

“Run out and…rent a chemistry lab,” he said, grinning just a bit.

Sharon didn’t miss a beat. “Done. Anything else?”

Richie stared at her, wondering if she was joking. She looked serious enough. Before he answered, Backpack closed its laptop and extended its metal legs. Its alarm blared and its scope pointed towards the entrance of the gas station. The noise cut through Richie’s already pounding head like a knife. He clamped his hands over his ears to block the painful noise.

Sharon looked apprehensive. “What is that? Foley? Don’t zone out on me!” She grabbed his shoulder and shook hard, regaining his attention.

Richie pushed himself to his feet quickly, if unsteadily. He pressed the kill switch and the noise went silent. “Metahuman…alarm.”

That was all he had to say. Sharon understood at once. She didn’t waste time wondering how the hell Reilly had gotten away from the police or how he’d found the station. Richie was trying to reach the front door, and she rushed to help. Together, they slid the deadbolt into place and, for good measure, shoved one of the cabinets to barricade the doorway. They barely made it before a long, reptilian tail smashed through the wooden door.

* *

5

Running

Sharon reacted at once. Before Reilly---before Toxin ---pulled his tail from the hole he’d broken in the door, she picked up the broken handle of a broom (which judging by the dirt on the floor hadn’t been used in about ten years) and swung it like a bat right down on Toxin's stinger once, twice, and on the third blow, Toxin let out a howl and withdrew.

Richie beamed at her. “Nice shot.”

She fumed. “You know, Foley, twenty-four hours ago my life was not something out of a B horror movie.”

“I know what…you mean.”

Toxin's tail shattered the display window. Sharon jumped back. Richie turned away barely in time to avoid the flying shards of glass. He jammed the pen taser right down into the scaly tail and fired. Toxin howled, and Richie yelped a bit as the electricity from the pen shocked him as well before he managed to let go. Sharon found an old tire and threw it; it struck Toxin's torso and knocked him away from the windowsill.

Richie rubbed his tingling hand and arm. They had to get out of there---he was in no shape to deal with Toxin at the moment. “Gotta…get out…now,” he told Sharon. “Back way… go! Backpack!” On command, the robot scrambled across the floor and took its place on his back. Sharon retrieved the first aid kit; Richie grabbed his cracked helmet and pulled it on. He lead the way from the office to what had once been the station’s garage.

Toxin was waiting: Gear and Sharon burst into the repair bay just in time to see him rip the already broken garage doors from their tracks. They split up: Sharon grabbed what she hoped was an old but still functional fire extinguisher and aimed at the advancing mutant. It wasn’t an impressive spray, but it deterred Toxin just for a second. A second was all the time Gear needed. When Toxin leaped out of the path of the chemical cloud, he landed squarely on the doors that covered the old repair pit. Gear threw a switch and the doors parted beneath Toxin, dropping him into the pit. They closed above him. There was a boom as his heavy tail struck the metal plates.

“You rig that, too?” Sharon nodded to the pit that temporarily trapped Toxin.

Gear grinned a bit. “Trapdoor. Every superhero..hideout needs one.”

“I thought villains have trapdoors and superheroes have hidden escape doors?” she teased.

“Give me…a break.”

Toxin's tail made a serious dent in the doors with the next strike.

“C’mon!” Gear caught Sharon’s arm and urged her past the pit and out to the street. Sharon made a beeline to her car. “What are…you doing?” he asked.

“No offense, Foley, but your flying wasn’t exactly steady when you were healthy.” She waved him to the passenger side.

Okay, so she was right about that. He hadn’t been anxious to try to fly them both out of there in his current state anyway. “I’m still working on the landings,” he said, climbing into the vehicle. The car peeled away from the station in a squeal of tires.

* *

By the time Reilly had torn apart the steel doors that trapped him in the repair pit, Sharon and the geek were long gone. It didn’t matter, Reilly was sure he knew where they were going. He didn’t know how Sharon had managed to find Gear’s hideout, but guessed that gadget boy had called her for help since his buddy, Static, was apparently going to remain a no-show. The kid probably wanted to warn her about Reilly’s venom before kicking off, which would be very soon unless he missed his guess. The toxins should have finished him off long before now. Reilly would give the kid credit---he was definitely tougher than he looked.

Reilly knew Sharon. She would have to know just looking at Gear that Reilly’s poisons were working on him. Even if the kid argued, ever-responsible Sharon would pack him into her car and drive him straight to the nearest hospital with every good intention of saving his life. So that would be where Reilly would look for them first.

* *

Sharon kept an eye on the rearview mirror the whole time, watching for any signs of pursuit even as they put miles between themselves and the gas station. In the seat next to hers, Richie was doing the same thing. She was sure Toxin had followed her to the station, and she wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. She didn’t come close to feeling safer until they reached the freeway.

Richie finally turned his attention from the rearview mirror. “Where are you going?” He hadn’t had time to figure out where to go next, but she clearly had a destination in mind.

“I’m going to get your chemistry lab like I said I would, Foley. Remember?”

“Where--?” he started.

She pointed to a freeway sign: Dakota State University, 12 miles. “One chemistry lab as requested.” At his dubious look, she added. “You didn’t want to go to the hospital, remember? The only other medical labs are at the university or the military base. Would you rather be a lab rat for the government?”

Richie flinched at the thought. ‘Apprehensive’ would be an understatement about how the folks in uniform felt about Bang Babies.

“Don’t worry, I know the professors. I’ll get us in. You just get that formula ready---you do know how to make an 'anti-venom', right?” she asked.

“I said I was…working on it.”

“Well, get back to work on it.” When he hesitated, she barked “Now!” in the tone that always got him and Virg to jump. Backpack climbed down from his shoulders and obediently popped open its screen. Richie sluggishly set to work punching numbers into the computer. He had to give her credit: Most of the items he would need to make the anti-venom were probably in the university’s bio-labs, provided she could get them inside without too many questions.

Richie had to hide Backpack and the broken helmet, as well as pull his sweats on over his hero uniform to avoid drawing attention from the security guard on duty, but Sharon’s student i.d. got them past the check-in gate and onto the campus. She avoided the open parking lots, instead pulling into the covered garage where the car would be harder to spot, just in case they hadn’t managed to throw Toxin off their trail. She pulled into a space in a darkened corner and shut off the engine before looking at her passenger. He was leaning back in the seat, eyes closed, and there were beads of sweat dotting his forehead, matting his hair.

“You have helmet hair,” she cracked.

He grumbled something that made it clear what she could do with her observation.

Sharon chuckled. “Just checking. You still with me?”

Richie nodded. “Yeah.” He opened his eyes.

“All right, then grab your recipe and let’s go. I’ll do the talking.”

Sharon got out first. He followed, stumbling out and waited out another dizzy spell by leaning against the vehicle. She circled around to and surprised him again by linking her arm around through his, steadying him as they made their way to the garage’s elevator.

* *

It took an appearance by “Gear” and a bit of persuasion on Sharon’s part. They spent what seemed like hours speaking to the professor (Sharon doing most of the talking) in charge of the Biology Department. However, Professor Kurtz finally let them ‘borrow’ the lab with an assurance that it was a metahuman-related emergency and a promise to account for everything they used. The professor had seen the news reports about the Bang Baby fight in the downtown area that afternoon, and if letting them use the university helped take the dangerous metabreed off the streets, he was all for it. If he was curious about what Sharon and Gear were up to or about the connection between his honor student and Dakota’s superhero, he kept his questions to himself.

The lab was a techno-geek’s Disneyland. Richie momentarily forgot about toxins, migraines, and mutants as he surveyed the equipment.

“What do you think?” Sharon asked.

“Put in…entertainment unit and…a pizza maker and…could live here.”

“You’re a very weird guy, Foley.”

“True.” Using one of the counters for support, he started rifling through the cabinets and drawers, taking inventory. He mentally catalogued the equipment and sighed, “I could use…one of—well, everything in here…”

Backpack offered an extremely insulted beep as climbed up the counters and plugged itself into the lab computers.

“Don’t worry, buddy, I’m not trading you for anything,” Richie promised. He sank onto a chair in front of Backpack and the lab computer. Sharon watched from over his shoulder as he called up the antivenin files he’d written to display on Backpack’s screen and downloaded the medical files to display on the lab’s computer. He started feeding numbers into the computer almost faster than she could keep up with.

“Are you sure that venom is slowing you down?” she asked.

“Sure…only using two..computers at a time,” he cracked.

She rolled her eyes. “Show off.”

Backpack and the lab computer both beeped, displaying a list of chemical compounds.

“Is that it?” Sharon asked. “The anti-venom?”

Richie shrugged. “Hope so.”

“You hope so?!”

He rubbed his eyes wearily. “Better with gadgets…than chemistry, but should…kill venom cells...neutralize toxins. Theoretically. One way…to find out.”

“Oh great. ‘Theoretically’. Maybe you should test it first?”

“On what?”

“Good point.” She wasn’t happy about it, but she didn’t have anything better to suggest. “What can I do?”

Richie pointed to the drawers. “Find…safety glasses…need your help with this stuff.”

Sharon found a pair of goggles, gloves, and a lab coat and donned them quickly. They settled into a rhythm: Richie told her the items he needed and she dug through the cabinets and searched the labeled bottles to find them, being able to round up the supplies much faster than he could in his present state. That accomplished, he had her help double-check the amounts he needed of the different chemicals, not trusting his own measurements with his blurring vision. Mixing the compounds into the 'anti-venom' went much more smoothly than gathering the ingredients. Richie operated the lab equipment as expertly as any trained technician, though, in the protective lab coat he wore over his “Gear” outfit and up to his elbows in beakers and computers, he looked somewhat like a movie mad scientist, she thought. Under different circumstances, she would have found it an amusing sight.

Sharon lost track of how many different variations of the anti-venom formula they cooked up. By the time they ended up with a repulsive-looking green goo that Richie pronounced ‘finished’, the sky outside had grown dark.

She found sterile syringes in one of the cabinets and grabbed one. “See if there…are more,” Richie asked her.

“You planning on taking two doses?” she frowned.

“Not for me…for you…”

Sharon took a step back from him. “You want me to let you inject me with this…whatever this is? I don’t think so.”

“…If Toxin comes back. One for…Virg, too. Just in case.” He didn’t finish the thought.

“I’m not listening to that defeatist talk, Foley. But that’s a good idea.” Sharon chuckled at bit. “’Course, you can give Virgil his injection. Way he is about shots, you’d have better luck sticking Reilly with a needle than him.”

She found two more syringes. Richie loaded all three with the foul solution. His hands weren’t to steady, so she grabbed the syringe from him. “Here, let me do it,” she said. He gave a nod of appreciation. She put the needle to his arm, but then paused. “This stuff is safe, right?”

“Safer than...no antivenin.”

“That’s reassuring. You ready then?”

“Not really.”

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’” She finished the injection quickly. “I suppose now we have to wait? How long until it works.” Sharon didn’t add what she was thinking, ‘If it works.’

Richie sighed, leaning against the table, head on one hand, and closing his eyes in exhaustion. “Not…long.” He sat that way for a long while.

* *

An hour slipped by without Richie so much as twitching a muscle. Sharon pretended not to notice his slightly ragged breathing or sweat-soaked forehead, but she worried---that the anti-venom would fail, that they’d taken too long getting the anti-venom, and other worst-case scenarios. And if this antivenin did work, what next?

Her instinct was to…well, to rat Virgil and Richie both out to her Dad at to Richie’s parents first chance she got, if only for their own safety. They were high school kids. This wasn’t a movie or a cartoon world. If she let them keep up their superhero game, they could get themselves killed, if not by Toxin then by the next, even more dangerous mutant that came along. Her brother might have been put on the Earth to drive Sharon nuts, but he was still her family.

Then there was his partner. She watched Richie for a minute, trying to equate the skinny, annoying, slightly nerdy, lifelong bully-target kid who was her brother’s best friend with the chemically enhanced brainiac who could whip up MIT-quality machines and brew anti-venoms as easily as though he were building tinker toys or mixing Kool-Aid. Her brother and Foley couldn’t be trusted to return library books on time. It was a prime example of the Lord having a sense of humor that they were the ones who’d taken on responsibility for taking on the worst of the Bang Babies terrorizing the city. If I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t believe it…

“Richie?”

He made a noise, but didn’t open his eyes or lift his head. “Hm?”

“About what you did last night…it’s just…” She forced the word out. “Thank you.”

“No prob…day’s work…all that stuff,” he said quietly.

“Not for that…well, not just that…I mean for coming back, for staying at the house. I just…well, I appreciate it.”

Now, he opened one eye, looking somewhat startled. “No…problem.”

Sharon let him have his moment, then: “You still owe me twenty bucks.”

“Yeah, yeah…I know…”

Some of the color was slowly returning to his face, Sharon observed. She quickly felt his forehead with the back of her hand, glad to feel the fever beginning to diminish. “You feeling better?”

“Think so.” Richie tried moving a bit, turning his head back and forth slowly, and gingerly moving his injured arm. The muscles were still sore, but the headache had diminished somewhat; his head was starting to feel a bit clearer. He hoped that was a good sign. He would have to take a sample of his blood and run it under a microscope to know if the serum had neutralized the venom cells---

Richie’s expression darkened. He sat up as if something had suddenly drawn his attention. Reflexively, Sharon looked at Backpack, but the robot was silent and alarm-free.

“What?” she asked, warily.

Instead of answering, Richie turned back to the computer and began punching in new numbers, still moving somewhat stiffly but with determination. His lips were moving as he typed, mumbling questions and answers to himself in science jargon that Sharon couldn’t quite decipher. She caught only a few of the soft words, “Not possible…but still…small variation on the formula…might be possible…switch these compounds…make immune system react…what would happen…?” He punched another set of numbers into the computer and the machine gave a loud beep in response. “Whoah…”

“Uh, you want to let me in on what you’re talking about or are you having a private conversation there?” Sharon interjected.

Richie spun the chair towards her with a speed she hadn’t expected, given his condition, grabbed her by the shoulders, and before she knew what was happening, kissed her right on the mouth. When she got over the shock, she found him grinning broadly. “Great idea!” he told her.

It took a bit of effort to form a coherent sentence. She was considering thumping him, but decided to first ask, “What? You lost me.”

“What you said before---we can use the injection on Reilly.”

“And, besides getting a face full of that hypnovenom of his and both our butts kicked, that would help us how exactly?”

He scribbled another grocery list of lab supplies and shoved it into her hands. “Work and talk---you gather, I’ll explain.”

6

Anti-Venom

Sharon was not as predictable as Reilly had thought.

His search of Dakota’s hospitals, medical clinics, and assorted trauma centers had yielded nothing. A little shot of venom had made the desk clerks and receptionists at each facility more than willing to answer his inquiries (not to mention forget he’d even been there after he was done asking), but no one matching Sharon’s description---and definitely no meta-humans---had turned up anywhere remotely equipped for medical emergencies. Reilly had ditched the police cruiser he’d used to escape from the city jail, but he’d kept the officer’s handheld radio and monitored it. Hospitals were required to report any metahumans brought into their facilities, after all. The afternoon and early evening passed without a word about injured Bang Babies.

The other possibility was that Gear was already dead, a very likely scenario given the amount of time that had passed. Reilly checked his watch. It had been almost twenty-four hours since he’d stung Gear the previous night. Even the strongest Bang Baby couldn’t hold up against the poison that long. Where would she take him? She might have dumped him somewhere, but, given what he knew about her, that didn’t seem likely. She was too responsible to do that. He tried the coroner’s office more as a last ditch shot, not surprised when he came up empty again.

Reilly was becoming frustrated.

He’d gone to the youth center in search of her, only to find the place locked up tight as it had been since Gear and Toxin's fight that afternoon. Then Reilly returned to the Hawkins’ house, finding only her father’s car in the driveway.

Where had she hidden that irritating mutant do-gooder? The only other places that could help a metahuman that he hadn’t checked already were the military hospital and the---

It came to him in a flash of inspiration. In fact, he kicked himself for not thinking about it before.

Smiling a bit, Reilly helped himself to the nearest available vehicle---which the driver abandoned quite readily without the persuasion of his venom when Reilly mutated into Toxin right there in front of the man. The man took off running and never looked back as Reilly climbed into the SUV and headed for Dakota State University.

* *

Sharon eyed with skepticism the beaker with the new solution (which looked like nothing but green goo from a Halloween toy to her) that Richie was carefully preparing. “This is going to work, right?”

He shrugged.

“Swell.” She watched him fuss over his concoction for a minute before asking: “Not to shoot holes in this wonderful plan of ours, but how do you plan to get Reilly to sit still long enough to get that stuff into him?”

Richie paused at that. Sharon could almost see the wheels turning in his brain as he looked around the room. His gaze rested on the lab’s television set. “This campus has televised courses, right?”

“So?”

“Where are the satellite dishes?”

She had no idea where he was going with this. “It’s on the roof. Why? You planning to lull him into a stupor with prime time programming or something?”

Backpack’s metahuman alarm sounded.

“Lord, I’m beginning to hate that thing.” Sharon grumbled. She ran to the window, which offered a clear view of the parking garage and the entrance to the science wing two stories below. She was in time to spy a flash of a scaly tail sweeping through the doorway. The security guard who had been manning the entrance was now napping contentedly on the grass…no doubt with Reilly’s hypnovenom to thank. She turned back to Richie. “Guess who. Please tell me that brew of yours is ready.”

He gave her a decidedly negative look in response.

“How much longer?”

“Ten minutes…maybe more.”

Sharon held back a curse. “He’ll be here before then. Pack up the science lab and let’s go.” She picked up the bookbag that held his striped sweatshirt and jeans and offered it to him. They might be able to sneak out of there without drawing attention if he weren’t in his superhero costume.

Richie moved from the worktable, but made no attempt to pack up his gadgets or take the bookbag. Instead, he began shakily pulling on his gloves and broken helmet.

“Richie...?” Sharon asked uneasily.

“All you have to do is follow the formula on the computer screen. I’ll try to keep Toxin busy. If I can’t, I’ll pull the fire alarm, you get out as soon as you hear it---” Sharon’s glare halted his words. “What?”

“Oh, let’s see, where do I start? With the fact that you are definitely not ready to go up against Reilly Cates right now or with whatever brain cells of yours are still misfiring if you think I can decipher that.” She pointed to the elaborate chemical formula on the computer screen.

“You have to---I’m not leaving without the antidote,” Richie said firmly. “There’s no other way to stop Toxin, and I can’t be in two places at once.”

He was right, of course, but that didn’t mean she had to be happy about it. She set the bookbag on the worktable, hands still tightly griping the straps.

Two places…

Sharon grinned. “Maybe you can, Foley. At least for ten minutes.” When he stared at her uncomprehending, she drummed her fingers on the book bag. He figured out her intentions and fear crossed his face.

“No,” he said. Richie moved to take the bag, but she snatched away, nearly causing him to stumble. He leaned against the counter for support, waiting out the brief bought of dizziness that the sudden movement had caused.

“Give me a better option, Einstein,” she challenged, keeping both arms securely wrapped around the book bag. “And do it fast.”

* *

At the near midnight hour, the hallways of the university’s science wing were darkened and all but deserted. The lone professor still at work had the misfortune to investigate the footsteps he’d heard in the hallway and found himself face to face with the enormous insect-like Bang Baby as Toxin lumbered through the hallways.

“Miss Hawkins? Finished up...?” Expecting to find his favorite student (the only other person who should have been in the wing at that late hour) in the hallway, Professor Kurtz didn’t have a moment even for fright upon discovering Toxin there instead. The metahuman’s hypnotic toxin incapacitated him almost at once.

“The girl and the geek. Where are they?” Toxin hissed.

The professor stared, glassy-eyed, answering obediently, “The Medical Research Department. Biology Lab. Two floors up.”

So, Gear is still alive, Toxin thought. I’ll change that. “What are they doing there?”

The professor blinked. “They wouldn’t tell me. They said it was a metahuman emergency.”

Toxin scowled. “Take a nap,” the metabreed ordered. “And when you wake up, forget any of us were ever here.”

Kurtz obediently returned to his office, laid down on the couch there, and promptly fell asleep. Toxin shut off the lights and locked his door from the inside…just in case Sharon or her bodyguard decided to run to the professor for help.

It was a tight fit to get his massive mutant form into the small stairwell, but Toxin's long strides carried him up the two flights of steps in seconds. He used his tail to smash the door to the third floor into splinters, hoping that the sound had been heard by those in the lab. After the humiliation Gear had caused him in front of that reporter and at the gas station, not to mention how he’d fouled up Toxin's plans with Sharon over the last twenty-four hours, he was in the mood to toy with his foe.

Toxin lumbered into the hallway just in time to spot a figure in a striped sweatshirt and sneakers, wearing a familiar broken bicycle helmet, gloves, and robotic backpack, disappearing around a corner at the far end of the corridor. The robot was blaring an alarm, it’s scope aimed at Gear’s pursuer like a watchful eye. Toxin stormed after his prey. With his long stride, he was able to keep the boy in sight as Gear ran.

“Where are you running to, gadget boy? The only way off of this floor is past me or three stories straight down. Long way down without those skates of yours.” Toxin used his tail to send a trashcan flying at the boy, missing him by inches. He knew the do-gooder was trying to lure him away from Sharon, but it didn’t matter. Once Toxin dispatched Gear, he’d have plenty of time to find her. “I don’t know how you survived my venom, kid, but this time I’ll make sure you get a full dose.”

As Toxin watched, Gear rounded one corner of the hallway and ran into a dead-end. In front of him was a wall, the emergency exit which Toxin knew to be locked, and a row of student lockers. He didn’t look back at the mutant bearing down on him. Instead, Gear moved to grab the fire hose mounted on the wall and charged the line.

Toxin laughed. “What’s the matter, kid? Out of fancy tricks and robots? Think a little water’s going to save you? Tell you what: You tell me where you stashed Sharon and I’ll----”

At that, the figure in the striped sweatshirt turned to face Toxin . The metabreed froze in shock. Beneath the helmet and sweatshirt hood, behind the protective faceplate of the helmet, was not Gear but Sharon Hawkins.

She aimed the fire hose at him like a weapon. “You’ll what? Bore me with more clichés? Try giving me brainlock with that venom again?” Alone, face-to-face with the mutant, some of the confidence she’d forced when she convinced Richie to try this plan failed her. She grasped the hose tightly, willing her hands not to shake. She might be terrified, but she’d be damned before she’d Reilly know it. Ten minutes more minutes, ten minutes…just got to stall this clown for ten more minutes.

“Sharon?”

“I’m not sure what ticks me off more, Reilly---you trying to use that goo on me or the fact that my brother was right about you and probably won’t ever let me forget it once he finds out.”

Caught by surprise, Toxin's rage subsided a bit. As she watched, he morphed from the insect-like metabreed back into Reilly. He looked at her in confusion. “But…the gadget geek…”

Sharon put all her concentration into affecting a look of grief and pain---one she hoped would convince Reilly that “Gear” was no longer among the living. She even managed a tear for effect. It must have worked, for Reilly suddenly looked quite smug. Jerk, she thought with disgust. He took a step towards her, and she raised the fire hose in warning.

“Not another step,” she ordered.

“What are you going to do? Keep on running away from me? You know that the police can’t hold me.”

“I’m through running from you, creep,” she vowed. “No one else is getting hurt because of you.”

“I’m sorry you’re upset about the kid, Sharon. And I’m sorry about last night. I should never have used my power, not on you,” he apologized.

“No kidding,” she shot back.

“But, we should talk----”

Sharon rolled her eyes a bit at that idea. “Talk? Every word that’s come out of your mouth was just a lie, Reilly---or whoever you really are. I’m not your priest and I’m not your mommy. I don’t want to hear whatever excuses you have to make using your powers to manipulate people, to hurt people, okay! Besides, I’m a social worker. You can’t give me an excuse I haven’t already heard from a dozen or more idiots like you.”

He protested, “Not everything, Sharon. I was only----”

She finished for him, “---acting like every other lowlife who got doused in the Big Bang and gets off on using their power to take anything they want.”

“No! Well, not exactly…what I told you about living on the streets and in the shelters for two years was the truth. Not very bright, I know. When I came to Dakota and the community center, I was pretty desperate. You and your father and everyone there saved my life. I was just some runaway who was tired of getting bounced between foster homes. Another charity case, panhandling for money on the streets and living from shelter to shelter. If I had stayed around, if you and your father found out, you would have called the police, and they’d have sent me to another home or to some orphanage. If I could have been good enough for you then, if I could have gotten off the streets, I would have asked you out then,” Reilly said. “But I’d have never been good enough.”

“You don’t know me at all, Reilly,” Sharon answered, offended despite her intentions not to let Reilly’s excuses get to her. She wanted to check her watch, to see how much time was left, but dared not take her eyes off the metahuman.

Reilly continued, “I was living by the warehouses, trying to find work, when the Big Bang changed everything. It was an accident finding out what the venom could do. I just used it at first to get money for a meal here and there. I thought I could use it to make someone give me a job, a real job, so I could finally get off the streets. I didn’t mean to get carried away, but it was so easy. A shot of venom here, and someone gives you a few bucks for a meal. Another shot here and you get an apartment for the night, or a c.d. player, or a car. And then they forget you were ever there. If you spend your life seeing other people get whatever they want, you want the chance to have some of those things for yourself. It gets real hard to put the genie back in the bottle once it starts granting your wishes.”

Sharon watched him, unimpressed. “I’m sorry that happened, but is that supposed to make what you’ve done okay? Make you trying to use your power to grab me like I was a prize okay? That Gear kid was trying to protect me from you and now he’s dead---just like those other two Bang Babies. Is all that okay, too?”

“I didn’t know what my venom would do to other Bang Babies until those two tried to mug me. I was just protecting myself.”

“If that’s true, turn yourself in. Make it right,” she offered.

Reilly shook his head. “I can’t do that, Sharon. You know how the cops and the military feel about Bang Babies. No way…”

“I can’t help you then,” Sharon said flatly.

He ignored her. Scales began appearing across his skin as Toxin tried to emerge. “…And I am sorry about the gadget geek, but I’m not letting anyone get in the way now that I’m so close to having everything I’ve wanted for two years.” Reilly advanced a step, the sharp teeth that held the venom visible as he continued to morph back into his insect alter-ego.

Sharon turned the nozzle of the hose so that a trickle of water spilled out. “Stay back,” she warned. Inwardly, she cursed, Damn it, Richie, what’s taking so long!?

“I can help you. I can give you anything you want, everything you deserve. If you just let me help you understand.” If he could just get that face-shield off of her, Reilly mused, Make her forget there was a ‘Toxin', make her fall in love him again…

He took another step towards her. Sharon prepared to let loose with the full force of the water.

A shrill alarm deafened them both, this one not from Backpack but from the science wing’s biohazard alarm. The hallway lights immediately switched from their pale glow to bright red. “What--?” Toxin forgot about Sharon for a moment as he sought the source of the noise. There was only one place where anyone could have triggered the biohazard alarm: The Biology Lab.

He glared his fury at her. “The geek’s alive? Isn’t he?!”

“No,” she answered automatically. Sharon felt panic rise in her chest, but fought it down. Here we go.

With a snarl, Toxin turned away from her with every intention of storming that laboratory and tearing the ‘superhero’ into tiny pieces.

“No!” Sharon opened the nozzle and the torrent from the hose knocked Toxin off his scaly feet. The mutant was sent flying half the length of the hallway, his momentum halted only when he slammed into a row of lockers. Sharon didn’t let him recover from the impact; she let fly with a zap cap. Toxin howled from the combination of water and the cap’s static electricity. The metabreed lay there, apparently stunned.

Sharon reached over her shoulder to tap Backpack. She’d needed the robot to make her look like “Gear” to lure Reilly away from the lab while Richie worked. But, Richie needed the robot now if this harebrained scheme was going to work. “All right, Fido, go help Mr. Wizard. And do me a favor, don’t let Reilly make a pincushion out of him.”

The robot beeped affirmatively and obediently scrambled past the dazed mutant, heading for the Biology Lab.

Sharon used the lock pick Richie had given her to open the emergency exit and ducked into the stairwell, slamming the door shut behind her. The sound of the lock clicking back into place didn’t comfort her. The door wouldn’t do a thing to hold back Reilly if he followed her. He must have incapacitated all the security guards in the area if none of them were responding to the hazard alarm---just as she and Richie had figured he would. No one was coming to help until the police and fire department got there. By that time, the fight would be over.

One way or another.

She reached into the sweatshirt pocket, palming the special zap cap Richie had managed to modify in the two minutes between when they came up with their plan and when Sharon had gone to intercept Toxin. This had better work.

Not dwelling on that thought, she instead turned and began to run down the staircase.

* *

Toxin awoke to the still-blaring alarm and an empty hallway. Sharon had gone, probably back to the lab to warn her bodyguard. He picked up the discharged grenade she’d hit him with, venting his rage by crushing the metal as easily as if it were an aluminum can. Then he pushed himself to his feet.

They would not get away from him this time.

* *

Richie was just opening the laboratory window, willing his head not to spin as he looked at the three-story drop, when the pounding of footsteps from the hallway alerted him to Toxin's arrival. He checked his belt to make sure the two surprises he’d be concocting for Toxin ---a zap cap he’d only finished modifying minutes before he’d triggered the alarm and the taser pen loaded with its very important new contents---were secure there. He had draped one leg over the window ledge when the laboratory’s double doors flew from their hinges, sailed across the laboratory, and crashed into the wall on the other side. Focused on the teenager, the mutant failed to notice the robot as it followed him into the room. Richie, however, watched Backpack scramble up the wall and crawl, spider-like, across the ceiling, racing to join his programmer.

Toxin homed in on the familiar figure in the black and green uniform and jet skates. The boy had wrapped a torn piece of lab coat around his face and donned a pair of safety goggles in a feeble attempt to disguise himself, but there was no doubt this was the same metahuman, “Gear”, whom Toxin had fought earlier that day. He advanced on Gear, snarling, “You’re only still breathing because I want to know how you survived my venom, gadget geek.”

Gear’s eyes crinkled as though he were grinning ear-to-ear beneath that makeshift mask. “Never underestimate a ‘geek’ with a working knowledge of military technology, biochemistry…” Gear brandished two small beakers of clear liquid for Toxin to see. “…and the entire library of ‘MacGyver’ episodes on micro-DVD.” With that he dropped both beakers. They shattered on the tile floor, their contents mingling to form a cloud of noxious gas that stung Toxin's eyes and burned into his nostrils. The metabreed was wracked with a coughing fit as his lungs tried to keep out the gas.

Gear waved to his robot. “Backpack! C’mon!”

The robot dropped from the ceiling and landed neatly in Gear’s outstretched arms.

Not waiting to see how long the homemade tear gas incapacitated Toxin, Richie pulled his other leg over the window ledge and jumped. The plunge made his stomach lurch. Then, the jet skates fired, halting his fall. He was propelled upwards and, somewhat bumpily, managed to land with minimal difficulty on the roof of the science building.

He glanced over the edge of the roof and saw Toxin still his scaly face out the window, looking down as though expecting to find Gear splattered on the pavement below. Then, he glanced upward. His bug eyes narrowed as Gear gave him a jaunty wave, daring the mutant to follow. For good measure, Gear shouted down to him: “’Course, if you really want to know how I beat your poison, come on up!”

Toxin readily accepted the dare and began squeezing his massive frame through the laboratory’s window. He used his long claws to dig handholds into the brick sides of the building and began to climb up. Rapidly.

“Oh boy,” Gear muttered. He looked around. The satellite dish was there, mounting on steel support beams, just like Sharon had said.

* *

Sharon raced down the staircase, reaching the ground floor in record time. She found the fuse box in the maintenance closet and used the lock pick to open it. Saying a quick and silent prayer, she set the special “zap cap” (as he’d called it) in the box and pressed the trigger. The grenade fired its mechanical tethers right through the panel and wrapped around the wires underneath the switches. Richie’d told her the grenade was meant to absorb Virgil’s static powers, but if his modifications worked, it should drain the juice for this entire building just as well. If it worked. He’d had only a few minutes to modify it there in the Biology Lab and he’d probably been distracted, to say the least, at the time.

It worked better than he’d said it would: Once it had its tethers wrapped around the power lines, the modified zap cap not only disrupted the power flow to the building, it then proceeded to short out the entire campus, and then, before it was through, the lights of the nearby city blocks went dark.

Sharon jumped involuntarily when the lights blinked out, leaving the building in darkness. It didn’t stop with the science wing, either: A second later, the lights from the street lamps and the other campus buildings flickered and died. The building emergency lights did not come on; There wasn’t even a ray of moonlight to pierce the inky blackness. Hope there weren’t any biohazards or student science projects about to be ruined by the power outage, she thought.

“Foley…was it supposed to black out the entire city!?” Sharon called through the darkness, knowing full well he was way out of earshot.

She couldn’t begin to find her way to the exit, much less to the roof, in this blackout. “Oh that’s just great, how am I supposed to see---?”

There was a whir from the helmet as a small eyepiece clicked into place directly in front of Sharon’s right eye. The pitch black was suddenly illuminated. “Okay, that helps,” she approved. It was a night vision eyepiece, Sharon realized. The guy really did think of everything.

* *

On the roof, Richie watched as the campus---and most of the city of Dakota---was suddenly shrouded in darkness. Oops.

He only had a few seconds before Toxin would be joining him on the roof. Backpack extended its scope and shined a light on the satellite dish. Gear scrambled over to the dish and hurriedly began cutting its cable and stripping wires, wrapping the wires around the lengths of steel.

* *

Outside, the darkness didn’t slow down Toxin in the least as he scaled the side of the building. His insect senses adjusted almost at once to the darkness, sensing the heat of his prey even if he couldn’t pick up the scent with his nose and throat still burning from that gas cloud Gear had cooked up in the lab. Gear was near the satellite dish, messing with cables there. Toxin got his attention by tearing loose brick from the roof’s edge and pitching it at the kid. It bounced off the dish, denting the metal as it did, missing Gear by inches. Gear remained rooted to the spot, doggedly keeping at his task even as Toxin approached. It wasn’t until he’d wrapped the last wire that he turned from the dish and sought a hiding place.

Toxin smiled. “Outsmarted yourself this time, kid. Brush up on your Entomology, genius, the dark isn’t going to hide you from me.”

“Yeah, cockroaches prefer the dark, Toxin,” Gear acknowledged.

The only shelter on the roof was the brick walls of the stairwell. Gear hurried, groping through the dark by Backpack’s light, still stumbling a bit but steadier than he’d been moving a few hours ago. He dragged the ends of the wire he’d just wrapped around the dish with him.

Gear crouched at the side of the wall. “But the thing about cockroaches is----” He gave Backpack a tap. “Switch on the high-beams, buddy,” he whispered. The robot extended its scope and it’s floodlight cut through the dark like a knife, and Toxin let out a howl of pain as he was blinded.

“---They hate the lights.”

Blind, in pain, Toxin lashed out with his tail at anything within striking distance. His tail tore a chunk of brick and mortar from the roof’s edge and sent it flying directly at the heat source he knew was his foe. Gear dove out of the projectile’s path, losing his balance in the dark. He groped for the wall of the stairwell to catch himself before he fell. His outstretched hand found the knob of the stairwell’s steel door. Toxin batted another pile of cement debris his way; Gear opened the door and ducked behind it. The open door deflected it, but the impact made him falter. He crouched behind the door, making himself as small a target as he could. Backpack extended its scope around the door, keeping the floodlight trained on the mutant the whole time.

Gear did a quick inventory of his remaining arsenal. He had four zap caps left, all of them tether caps (he had given Sharon the last shock cap)—that wasn’t exactly encouraging. Here goes nothing.

He risked breaking the cover of the door long enough to throw the first zap cap. Toxin's sharp senses detected the motion and he batted the sphere away with his tail. For good measure, he plunged his tail, stinger first, in the direction from which the grenade had been thrown. The stinger missed Gear by a hair’s breadth as he dove back behind the door.

Gear frowned. All right then…let’s see if he can stop three. He gathered the remaining zap caps into one fist, preparing to throw all of them at once. Toxin was ready this time. As soon as Gear left the protection of the steel door, Toxin let fly a volley of brick and cement, sending the teenager scrambling back for the cover of the stairwell before he could throw any of the caps.

“Foley!” The unexpected voice from behind Gear in the dark stairwell just about surprised him into dropping the zap caps.

He tossed a look of exasperation over his shoulder to the approaching figure. “You really need to stop doing that,” he told Sharon.

Sharon hunkered down behind him. “Don’t bite the hand that bears your battery.” She passed him the shock cap that was now charged with most of the city’s power grid. Gear hoped it would be enough. “By the way, next time you get to run up and down the stairs and I’ll take my chances with the flying skates. You got Reilly roped yet?”

As if in answer, another barrage of brick and mortar slammed into the steel door. “Um, no,” Gear replied.

“What have you been doing all this time!?”

“Mixing anti-venom, baiting mutants, falling out three-story windows, recovering from mutant toxin, rewiring the school satellite, and, oh yeah, trying not to get smashed or skewered by a giant bug…” He hurriedly attached the ends of the wires to the newly supercharged zap cap.

“What can I do?” Sharon offered.

He passed her the rewired zap cap. “When I get the tethers on Toxin, hit that button. Then get back to the car as fast as you can.”

“Oh good, another sprint on the stairs…”

Gear palmed the remaining three tether zap caps. “Ready?”

She held up the zap cap and gave one nod, her expression saying clearly: Ready as I’ll ever be.

Breaking cover one more time, Gear threw the last zap caps in quick succession. Toxin deflected the first one, but the second wrapped its tethers around his legs. He collapsed just as the third, and last, zap cap tethered his arms, binding them to his torso. Toxin worked his tail free of the bonds and swiped at Gear. The blow knocked Gear off his feet. Without his helmet, which Sharon still wore, the fall stunned him a bit. Before he recovered, Toxin thrust the stinger towards him, aiming directly at his heart.

Backpack scrambled over Gear’s shoulder, placing itself in the path of the stinger. The impact tore through the robot. Its damaged circuits sparked and failed; the brilliant floodlight that had been keeping the metabreed at bay flickered and then died.

His sight restored, Toxin's tail whipped back. He raised his stinger to strike again, a final fatal blow.

“Now, Sharon!” Gear shouted.

“What--?” This from Toxin. He craned his head, seeking her.

Sharon reacted at once while Toxin's senses homed in on her. At the same instant she pressed the trigger on the zap cap, his tail flicked and in one smooth motion knocked Gear’s helmet off her head. Before she knew what was happening, his hypnovenom struck her full in the face.

“Sharon!”

At once, the zap cap charged the wires that wrapped around the steel satellite base. As Gear had hoped, the power magnetized the steel. With the amplified power source, the entire dish became a giant magnet, which locked onto the metal tethers ensnaring Toxin. The Bang Baby was dragged from his feet and sailed right into the center of the dish.

Unfortunately, the magnet didn’t stop with Toxin. The helmet Toxin had knocked off Sharon all but flew to the dish. The steel stairwell door groaned, trying to break free of its hinges as it was drawn to the improvised magnet. The metal fire escape ladder, already loosened when Toxin had knocked chunks out of the ledge where it was anchored, now was torn from the mortar. It landed flatly across the dish, further boxing in the mutant. It also managed to neatly mangle Gear’s helmet beyond all hope of repair.

Then Gear felt the magnet lock onto the damaged Backpack, which was still strapped onto his shoulders, as well as his belt and the metal jet skates. In combination, his own gear dragged him towards the dish. Gear reached out blindly, and his hands found the stairwell doorframe. Before he could stop it, however, the taser pen was torn from his belt and hit the dish with a clank. Gear let out a curse that would have got him grounded had his folks been there to hear it.

Sharon stood, glassy-eyed, oblivious to all of this. Toxin's insect head turned towards her. “Sharon…”

She turned to face the satellite dish where he was imprisoned. “Come to me,” he ordered.

Obediently, she walked across the roof to the satellite dish. Still struggling just to avoid being plastered to the dish, there wasn’t a thing Gear could do about it except try to get through the hypnotic effects of the venom. “Sharon, no!”

“Sharon…the magnet. Turn it off.”

Sharon hit the switch on the zap cap and the magnetic field subsided. The ladder---and Gear’s assorted gadgets---fell away from the dish. Toxin tumbled to the rooftop. He saw Gear not far away, climbing to his feet. Toxin picked up the ladder and hurled it at the superhero. It struck the kid dead-on, knocking him clean off the roof. He plunged over the edge without a sound. Sharon did not so much as blink in response.

Toxin addressed her again: “Sharon, take off these tethers,” he commanded, indicating the bonds Gear had used to capture him. She reached behind Reilly and fumbled with something. He heard a click and waited for the tethers to fall away. Yes, this was working out better than he thought. Just a few more seconds, and he’d be free. The supergeek was gone, once he was free, he’d be able to start over again with Sharon and…

Sharon pulled back, but the tethers remained tightly around him. Toxin stared in confusion. Instead of the grenade, she was grasping the pen-shaped object Gear had used on him in the alley. Sharon’s face was no longer blank with hypno-shock. Indeed, she looked fit to kill.

“I so don’t think so, creep,” she spat.

Toxin gaped. “Sharon, what are you doing?”

“Putting the genie back in the bottle,” she answered. Then she made a face. “Ugh, one day fighting mutants and I’m already spouting clichés…”

Toxin had no time to react before Sharon aimed the weapon and fired. Instead of the anticipated shock, however, the pen shot a heavy needle through the Bang Baby’s scaly hide.

Toxin howled as every nerve in his body instantly reacted to the injection. All else around him ceased to exist as his every cell seemed to burn and the pounding of his blood in his ears deafened him to the sounds of sirens in the distance, to the familiar roar of jet skates, even to his own cries. Toxin never saw the figure in green and black swoop past, nor did Toxin make a move to stop his foe as Gear caught Sharon around the waist and, holding tight, carried her off the roof and away from the writhing mutant. It was an eternity to Toxin before the sensation of being burned from the inside out subsided and consciousness faded.

He woke to human faces and figures in uniform---police uniforms this time---hovering over him. A mustached officer was leaning down, reaching to check the bonds holding the insect Bang Baby. Somewhat sluggishly, Toxin thought there was something familiar about the man, but he couldn’t quite place the cop. His brain still felt oddly disconnected from his aching body. The officers’ voices were distorted, sounding like they were speaking from the other end of a tunnel.

“He’s the one. The one from the market yesterday afternoon,” the cop whose nametag read ‘Takeda’ said. “Keep those bonds on ‘til we get him locked up, and watch him. He got Peters and Fitzgerald to let him out of his handcuffs before they even had a chance to bring him in this morning. That Gear guy said this one has toxins in his saliva. Hypnotic or something.”

Another cop, dark-haired and angry looking knelt by Toxin. “Peters” helped pull Toxin to his feet. “Hello again,” he greeted the Bang Baby. Peters was going to be the butt of jokes and pranks for the next year because of this metahuman. He was damned sure not going to make the same mistake twice. “You’ve had a busy day: Disturbing the peace. Destruction of private property; Theft of police property; Destruction of public property. Enjoy the fresh air, you’re not going to be seeing the outside again for awhile.”

Instinctively, Toxin spat, the bile striking both officers full in the face. “Let me go,” he commanded, waiting for the telltale dullness to their gaze that would signal the toxin had taken its effect.

Instead of the expected venom-shock, the officers, if possible, looked even angrier. Takeda dug out a handkerchief, mumbling about needing a vacation. “Doesn’t look seem so ‘hypnotic’ to me,” Peters observed. He leaned very close to the Bang Baby. “Spitting on a peace officer. You’re looking at some serious trouble, kid. Let’s go.”

The officers swarmed in, escorting the very baffled metabreed to the stairwell.

* *

Epilogue

The sun was shining the following afternoon, and the park was bustling with activity. It was almost nice enough to chase away the ghosts of memories. However, despite knowing the metahuman was locked away in Dakota’s prison hospital and in no danger of escaping (this time), it was hard not to be unnerved strolling down the same path she’d walked with Reilly Cates three days earlier. Sharon had made a point of walking through this park on her way to work that morning, and now she walked it again. She was resolved not to let memories of Toxin keep her in hiding. The first walk had been the most difficult.

Given the reception her brother had received from Mr. Foley, going to Richie’s house had felt a little like walking into the lion’s den. She’d stood outside the door for a few minutes, hesitating, before steeling herself and knocking. Richie had said, not long after the terrible night Virgil had spent there, that his father was trying to work past the racism that had caused the rift between Mr. Foley and his son. She supposed there was some truth to that, for, when Richie’s father had answered the door after she knocked, he’d seemed surprised but at least he hadn’t looked hostile. She asked for Richie, stating that he’d called and asked her to bring the schoolbooks he’d left at their house the previous evening, and was directed up the stairs with something approaching gruff pleasantness. Sharon still felt the older man’s eyes on her as she climbed the stairs and walked down the hall. She supposed she’d have to get used to making excuses for her brother and Richie if she was going to be in on their ‘Static and Gear’ secret.

Mrs. Foley had given her a warmer greeting, at least, and warned her that her son hadn’t been feeling well that day and might still be asleep. Sharon believed it---she’d overslept that morning, too, and been dragging all day, and she hadn’t been the one almost killed by mutant toxin. It was probably a side effect of the anti-venom injection that Richie had given her before their last fight with Toxin. A little fatigue was a small price to pay---if Richie hadn’t thought to give her the anti-venom before she took on Cates, she wouldn’t have been immune to the venom when Toxin used it on her on the rooftop. Her memories of what had happened on that rooftop were sketchy, fleeting images of Gear working on the satellite dish, of metal tethers, of Richie tumbling off the roof and then reappearing, courtesy of those jet skates of his, in time to pull her away from Toxin. And she definitely remembered Toxin goading her to set him free. Who knew what would have happened without the anti-venom? The hair on her neck stood up just thinking about the grim possibilities.

Even though it was late afternoon, Richie looked like he’d just awakened when he answered the knock on his bedroom door. He was barefoot, wearing only his white t-shirt and sweats, and that short blonde hair was now hopelessly sticking out in all directions. Other than that, he looked worn out but leagues better than he had the previous night.

His eyes widened a bit when he saw who was standing at his door, “Sharon?”

“If you’re catching up on your beauty sleep, you’re wasting your time, Foley, it’s definitely a lost cause,” she said, with a half-smile.

“We’re only open for sarcastic put downs between the hours of eleven am and one pm on the weekends, you’ll have to come back tomorrow,” he answered, tiredly.

Sharon held up the box she’d just lugged ten blocks. “I ordered pizza. Peanut butter, garlic, and anchovies. Don’t know how you can stomach it but---what’s so funny?”

Richie shook his head. “I’ll tell you later.” He pulled the door open to let her in and made sure it closed behind her. He knew what she’d come to talk about and definitely didn’t want it overheard by his folks. Then, Richie plopped down on the edge of the bed, leaving her the chair by his desk.

“Looks like a sci-fi collectibles catalog exploded all over this room.” Sharon looked around. The place was tidy, which she hadn’t expected. The shelves boasted collections of various movie, comic book, and television memorabilia. The desk was loaded with computer equipment, including Backpack. Richie looked to have made some attempt to repair his robot. There was a spiral pad of hastily scribbled notes and equations lying next to the robot. It looked like repair instructions, that is, until Sharon looked closer. “ ‘Theoretical Astrophysics, Probably and Improbable, of the Isleton-class Space Vessel’? Sounds like you’re going to get thrown out of the MegaCon again, Foley,” she warned.

He looked immensely pleased. “You know Adventure Galaxy?”

“Well, let’s just say my little brother and his friend are into it, so I watched one episode to see what the fuss was about.” Okay, so she had the entire library of episodes on videotape, but he didn’t need to know that.

“You really have to hit the MegaCon to get the whole Galaxy experience,” he advised.

Sharon chuckled. “Well, it’s not exactly a Vriske exhibit, but we’ll see.” She turned her attention to the reasons she’d come to visit. “So, how are you feeling?”

“Like one giant bruise.” He waited while Sharon fidgeted in the chair a bit, building herself up to the real question on her mind.

Finally, she forced herself to ask, “Have you seen Cates?”

“I hacked the prison hospital’s computer to check on him. Guess that special anti-venom I made for him neutralized Toxin's ability to produce the toxin. Course, it also messed up most of Cates’ memory of what had happened since he’d mutated six months ago. I must have made the stuff stronger than I thought.” Richie watched Sharon carefully as he told her all this.

She stared at the carpet for a long time, thinking. She saw it all the time, but with the kids at the community center who were trying to stay out of trouble and out of gangs. Most of them made it out, did good things with their lives. Then there were others who got sucked in. She supposed it was similar for the metabreeds, but it was still unbelievable how some could do good things with their powers---like her brother and Richie---and others ended up corrupted by it like Reilly Cates.

Richie broke the silence. “You liked him? Cates?”

“Who knows? I never met him. Not the real Cates. All I know about him are a few memories that I can’t even trust, since I don’t know what was real and what are memories he put in there himself,” Sharon said.

Richie didn’t know what to say to that, so he settled for, “Sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

The silence settled in again. As long as things were awkward, Richie figured he’d better ask her the question that he’d been considering all that morning. “Um, about that, Sharon, I’m a little fuzzy on what happened most of yesterday, but I don’t remember if I said thank you…you know, for answering the shock box and everything else you did.”

“No problem. Day’s work and all that stuff,” she smiled.

“Seriously, though, uh…when we were at the lab…did I---?”

She crossed her arms, trying not to let her amusement at his extreme discomfiture show. “Did you…what? Kiss me? Yeah…”

He blushed bright red and buried his face in his hands. “Oh brother…”

“…but since Gear saved my life, and is generously going to donate four Saturdays to tutoring kids at the community center…”

Richie looked up, frowning a bit. “I thought we agreed on two Saturdays?”

“…is generously going to donate eight Saturdays tutoring kids at the community center,” Sharon continued, “I’ve decided to let you live.”

“Right.” Richie decided to quit before she added another month to his obligations. Now for the other problem… “Are you going to tell our folks about me and Virgil being Static and Gear?” He was dreading the answer, but he had to know.

Sharon was suddenly serious. She’d been wondering the same thing herself and still didn’t know what to do. She wasn’t sure that agreeing to keep their secret from everyone, including their families, was the right thing to do.

“It’s just…well, there hasn’t been time to talk to you about this, but…” Richie was wracking his brain for the best way to plead his case. “I’m not just worried about me and Virgil, though I’m pretty sure my dad would handle the news, er, badly.” He didn’t share his fear that Mr. Foley might blame Virgil, quite wrongly, for Richie’s exposure to the chemicals that caused both teens’ mutations and for dragging Richie into the superhero gig…undermining the progress Mr. Foley had made in the last year in trying to overcome years of racist attitude. “It’s that our families---you, your dad, my folks---if people found out we were, you’d all be in danger…I know, before I was Gear, I had a few guys try to take me down just because they suspected I was Static’s running buddy.”

She wasn’t ready to hear stories of Virgil and Richie’s other close calls, but wondered in the back of her mind just how many there had been...and how many more there would be in the future. She should tell their parents for no other reason than to protect the two dingbats from their own good intentions. The thought of having to worry every time they went out the door or every time she heard a police siren was enough to give her premature gray hair. But then, Sharon was certain that, even if she did tell her father or Richie’s parents, the boys would keep doing exactly as they were doing even if they had to sneak out from under their elders’ watchful eyes to do it. It wasn’t as if they could keep the boys locked in their rooms for the rest of their lives.

It was a doomed suggestion, but Sharon threw it out there anyway, “There’s no chance of you two getting some sense in your heads and quitting this whole ‘save the world’ thing, is there?”

Richie grew more serious than she ever remembered seeing him. In fairness to her, he had the grace to at least consider it for a second before shaking his head. “No. I mean, you said it yourself, what happens when the next Reilly Cates comes along and there’s no ‘supergeek’ to help?”

Well, that was that. Richie had made his decision and, if he were there to ask, she was pretty sure Virgil would agree with him. Sharon could either accept the boys’ wishes or play the parental card.

Richie watched her as she mulled what he had said. She wasn’t yelling or threatening him, maybe that was a good sign. “You going to blab to the ‘rents?”

“I’m not making any promises, Richie, especially not if one of you goes out and gets yourself poisoned by a giant bug again. Let’s just say that, for now, I’m going to wait.” A positively evil grin crossed her face. “Besides, I’m going to enjoy tormenting my little brother now that I know what he’s really doing when he does his disappearing act.”

“You’re not going to tell Virgil you know?”

The wicked grin was replaced by the phoniest of innocent gazes. “And ruin my fun? No way.”

Richie wondered if he should warn his best friend. Sharon must have known this, for she fixed him with a stern glare. “And you’re not going to tell him either. Unless you want me upset with you.”

“Nooo, no.” Richie held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I’ll take my chances with V. All he can do is hit me with a million volts of static electricity.”

“Glad we’ve settled that. So, you want to tell me now how the two of you got yourselves in the middle of the Big Bang in the first place?”

“It’s a long story,” Richie answered.

“That’s okay…” Sharon opened the box with the revolting pizza, going green around the gils just looking at it. She gingerly pulled out a slice and took the smallest possible bite. It tasted worse than it looked. “…It’s going to take me a long time to get this down.” She caught Richie watching her again with that ‘I know something you don’t know’ smirk. “What is so funny, Foley?”

He decided he’d wait until after she forced down that horrible pizza before he let her in on the mix up with the pizza order two nights ago. There was no reason that he couldn’t have some fun, too.

* *

One Week Later…

“Seriously, Richie, in a convention center full of people carrying toy laser guns and dressing as aliens, does it tell you anything that you’re the one who gets tossed out?”

“If they’re going to have a panel discussion on the theoretical astrophysics of the alien spaceships on Adventure Galaxy, they should know things are going to get ugly, V,” Richie defended himself without a hint of regret. “And I maintain that I would have won that argument on the quantum mechanics of the Isleton-class warships if that Dr. Pembleton guy hadn’t been leading the opposing panel. Give a guy a Noble Prize and suddenly he thinks he’s the metaphysics expert…”

Personally, after spending the equivalent of two Earth days on Am’prael Nine, Virgil’d had enough of alien worlds to last him for a long while. Nothing like a planet with monsters made of pure kinetic energy and an ecosystem that would have made the underworld from Dante’s Inferno look like Disneyland by comparison to make a guy appreciate being home with the normal monsters he’d become accustomed to dealing with. Besides, much as Virgil admired the Justice League, it was good to be back, patrolling the skies with his own partner in crime-fighting.

Still…“I still can’t believe we got tossed out before we got to meet Trey Armstrong and Olga Bogaev,” Virgil tossed Richie a reproving look. Richie was looking at his watch and missed it completely. “Am I boring you or have you got a date?”

“No, I just promised that Static and Gear would tutor some kids at the Community Center for the next couple of Saturdays,” Richie answered.

Gear might as well have announced he was swearing off technology, taking a vow of silence, and become a monk for the incredulous look Static gave him. “You…we’ll what…why did…how did that happen?”

Gear felt his ears turning a deep shade of crimson. Virgil must have noticed it, for his eyes narrowed into a disbelieving stare. He’d been giving Richie and Sharon that look a lot ever since his return from Am’prael Nine. Gear had given his partner the ‘bare bones’ version: Reilly was a metabreed using his powers to steal and brainwash people into forgetting they’d been robbed. Sharon had dumped him when she found out. Richie had a couple skirmishes with the loser, one when Toxin went to rob an alley, once when he broke into the university, and then wrapped him up for the police to lock away. While Reilly was messing around with the lab, he’d gotten into something that had seriously screwed up his venom’s powers. End of story and no big deal.

Richie doubted that Virgil had believed a word of it, but Sharon hadn’t wanted all of what had happened during their skirmish with Reilly Cates told to her little brother, and Gear privately agreed with her. Just the fact that Cates had been a metahuman sniffing around his sister and that Gear had to take him on alone grated on Static. Richie could see as much. If Virgil had known the whole story, he would have just beaten himself up for being out of town when his sister and his friend needed him. It wasn’t like Toxin was coming back to call them liars, anyway.

This news about tutoring—at Sharon’s request---heightened Static’s suspicions that something had happened while he was away that the two of them were not telling him. First, Gear had been way too wiped out when Static had returned for it to have been regular battle fatigue. Virgil had been worried, but Richie had shrugged off his questions with the explanation that he’d been “up too late with the Ultra’Noid Attack game”. Then, Static had wondered about Gear’s new helmet when he’d first seen it, but when he asked what happened to the old one, Gear had only said he’d cracked the old one chasing the metabreed Pit and liked the new one better…never mind that it was virtually identical to his old one. Finally, there was Backpack---the robot had definitely undergone some modifications during the short time Static had been gone. The panels on the robot’s shell were just a bit too pristine not to have been new. Gear had explained that as “upgrades”. Those weren’t the only strange things Virgil had noticed.

The weirdest thing of all was that Richie and Sharon had gone two days without a single argument or her threatening him with bodily harm. That was utterly abnormal.

“What can I say? Sharon thought it might get more of the kids to participate in the tutoring program if some of Dakota’s ‘superheroes’ were there to help. She cornered me after I trashed Toxin in the park. You ever try to say ‘no’ when Sharon’s decided you’re going to do something? Personally, I’d rather fight ten Toxins than try to argue with her.”

Static stammered. “But how---?”

“By the way, we’re signed up for the next seven Saturdays, too.” Before Static could react, Gear fired his jet skates and veered away.

“What!? Richie!”

Gear called over his shoulder. “Tell you about it later, V. Let’s go!” He waved for his partner to follow and then sped away, leaving Static floating there, still befuddled.

“Wait---!” he shouted, but it was useless. Gear was out of there.

Static scratched his head. “What the heck happened while I was away!?”

The End

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