J e n n i f e r E s t e p

Johnny Angel had been around in three incarnations now, counting the new guy.

“But you have powers, don’t you?” Mr. Sage asked. “I believe you mentioned something about an exoskeleton?”

Angel rolled up the sleeve of his tattered T-shirt and flexed his bicep. At first, I couldn’t see the difference between his bicep and anybody else’s. Well, it might have been a bit more defined than the average superhero’s. But when I looked closer, I realized there was a hard look to his skin, almost like it was stretched over steel. Plus, I could just make out a faint, weblike pattern in it.

“When I concentrate and focus on what I want to do, I’m impervious to pretty much everything. Missiles, guns, grenades, lasers.” Angel’s eyes flicked to me. “Fire.”

“Fascinating,” Hermit murmured, tapping a few buttons on his computer and angling the camera embedded in his suit for a closer look.

“We’re very sorry for your loss,” Mr. Sage said. “Believe me, we know how hard it is to lose a member of your team. But killing Siren and Intelligal won’t bring back your friend and mentor. And it won’t ease your pain. We need to capture them and turn them over to the police before they hurt someone else. That’s what superheroes do. It’s our duty. Dishing out your own brand of vigilante justice isn’t the way.”

“Turn them over to the police? Why? So they can spend a couple of weeks in prison before they break out and come back to Bigtime? The police in this town are useless. They always have been, and they always will be,” Angel scoffed. Ouch. I glanced at Mr. Sage. His face was smooth and unreadable, but his eyes glittered. Being the chief of police, he didn’t think his men were useless. Quite the opposite. They provided valuable support to the superheroes in town, as well as taking care of the more ordinary, mundane crimes.

“I’m going after Siren and Intelligal, and there’s nothing H o t M a m a

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you can do to stop me.” Angel’s green eyes shimmered in his tight face. “Get in my way, and you’ll be sorry.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked. “Kill us too?”

“If you get in my way—yes. I will kill you, superheroes or not. I won’t hesitate. Not for a second. Remember that. Or suffer the consequences.”

With those words, Angel turned and stalked into the darkening night.

´ 9 ´

“Can you believe the nerve of that guy? Telling us, the Fearless Five, to stay out of his way or he’ll kill us? He must have a pair of steel balls on him to go along with that exoskeleton,” I snapped.

“Fiona,” my father chided. “There is no need for such language.”

“Well, he must,” I muttered.

After Johnny Angel huffed and puffed and stormed away, Lulu had brought the van around, and we’d gone back to Sublime. Now, we were gathered in the underground library, reviewing the mission and planning our next move. The others clustered in front of the film screen, staring at the footage from inside the factory. I sat in the corner, munching on the cookies I hadn’t had a chance to eat in the van, along with a couple of cheese burritos, a tray of tortilla chips and hot salsa, Spanish rice, refried beans, and a gallon of raspberry iced tea. The fight with the ubervillains and dragging Mr. Two-Ton Ego around had zapped a lot of my H o t M a m a