The Supervillain and Me by Danielle Banas

Author:Danielle Banas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I expected him to teleport me home, but home wasn’t where we ended up.

A mad-scientist laboratory was.

We appeared in the room a little after midnight, surrounded by humming machines and winking, colored lights. Iron Phantom swiped a stack of papers from a computer desk nearby, shoving them in one of the drawers and locking it before taking the microchips I’d collected off my hands. My heart beat a heavy rhythm in the back of my throat. We actually did it. I couldn’t believe we actually managed to steal the chips without getting caught … or killed. Forget landing the lead in the musical, tonight had to be my proudest accomplishment. A damn shame I couldn’t write villainous activities and superhero stealth on my résumé.

I tugged the knot out of the ribbon at the back of my head and peeled my mask from my sweaty cheeks as I followed Iron Phantom across the floor. As fluorescent lights flickered to life, more machines emerged from the shadows. The back wall was covered in screens revealing security cameras in various sectors throughout the city. A large monitor showed the deserted entrance of the City Bank downtown. Another, on the far end, displayed the red tile floor of the Morriston High School lobby.

“What is this place?” I asked, watching Iron Phantom carefully place a chip under a large microscope. If the countertops weren’t covered in computers or microscopes, they were obstructed by beeping metallic boxes with antennas and glass observation windows. Rows of red lasers scanned back and forth along an empty tray in some type of futuristic microwave. In the back corner sat a cylindrical MRI scanner, blue and yellow wires trailing onto the floor from its disabled body. If he told me he was building a flux capacitor in a DeLorean to take us back in time to 1985, I would have believed him.

“All good supers have a secret lab,” Iron Phantom grunted. He turned a dial on the side of his microscope, his eye still pressed into the lens.

Not Connor, I thought. My brother was lucky he could do long division; science wasn’t his thing. Of course, he wasn’t alone. I could comprehend what they taught us in school. But here, with Iron Phantom’s pinging computers and pulsing lasers, I was so out of my league.

I spun in a slow circle, taking it all in. A small glass ball covered in clear spikes sat on top of a map of Morriston’s bus system. It looked like something belonging to a punk rock band, not a superhero. But it seemed innocuous enough … until the glass glowed bright blue as my hand moved closer. I quickly pulled back—you know, in case it electrocuted me or whatever.

“That’s just a paperweight.” Iron Phantom laughed. “It changes color when it senses body heat. It doesn’t bite.”

The glass turned yellow this time as my hand closed in. I backed up. It faded to clear.

“And you can sit down if you want,” he continued, rolling a stool next to his workbench.

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