High School Heroes II - Camp Hero

Flying. I really enjoyed it. One might think it would be scary, soaring through the air with nothing holding you up but sheer willpower, but it really was exhilarating. The wind in my face, and Pittsburgh shooting past below me—it had to be what freedom felt like.
I wouldn’t be able to do this soon. In another month—give or take—my mother would have a baby. Since she just started her new job, I promised I would take care of the baby after school. I couldn’t very well fly with a baby. What if I dropped it?
Chris. The voice filled my head, like so many did on a daily basis. This one, however, was calling me by name. Could you concentrate on our mission?
Is it too much to ask that you call me Christine? I asked my mental invader. And it’s not a mission! We’re a bunch of idiots chasing a car on the highway!
The car weaved through traffic in front of me, speeding down Interstate 396 at over a hundred miles an hour. The flashing lights of police cruisers lit up the cloudy afternoon as they diligently pursued their suspects. If I’d learned nothing else in the last few months, they wouldn’t catch the car. Like when those crack-addicts jacked the woman’s mini-van with the baby still in the back seat. We found the cop cars crashed in a ditch as we came by in pursuit.
No—the only ones who could stop them were us.
Yeah, but I’m the best at it, my mental invader added.
Ethan, I swear, you’re a child. I looked down at the ground, trying to find my boyfriend among the traffic. He should have been able to catch that car by now, seeing how fast he could run. Where are you, by the way?
Got caught behind a bus, he answered.
He’s lying, another voice echoed through my skull. This one belonged to Savanah. He stopped at a hot dog stand.
I was hungry.
You’re always hungry, I added. Now, catch up.
I’m right behind you, Ethan groaned.
Loser, Savanah said.
I flew closer toward the evading car. I finally got a good look at it—a white 1987 Chrysler Conquest, or so the news report said. It certainly looked its age and was hardly something I would make an escape in. Actually, I was surprised the thing could even do a hundred miles per hour. I half expected to see nuts and bolts flying off the thing as it rumbled across the pavement.
As I skimmed lower to the pavement, I caught my reflection in the windows of a building and felt the revulsion for what I saw. My half-eaten lunch threatened to revisit me at the sight. I looked absolutely hideous. I swore, when I agreed to come on these stupid little quests the others insisted on, I would never wear anything like this. Yet, here I was, skin-tight, black spandex covering my body from my neck to my ankles, and an ugly purple mask that covered my forehead and my cheeks, leaving only my mouth uncovered. I hated it. I think that’s why they made me wear it.
Actually, it was so you matched the rest of us, Ethan chimed in.
Really? I asked. So, this has nothing to do with wanting to see your girlfriend in something tight and black?
Well, there’s that too, Ethan admitted.
You do know, we can all hear you, the fourth member in our group, added.
Shut up, Pete! I screamed into his mind.
I was right behind the tiny car now. Close enough that I could see three people inside, but not much else. The reporter on the television at school wasn’t too clear whether the men inside were “armed and dangerous.” I didn’t see any guns. The three men didn’t look at all concerned with the police cars chasing them. They didn’t even look back at their pursuers. Very odd.
I projected the image of the car into my friends’ heads. Ethan would be pulling the other two behind him on skateboards. I’m actually surprised Savanah could stand on one of those things. I guess super-strength did have its advantages.
The cops were a good twenty yards behind. Four blaring squad cars weaved their way through traffic. The traffic was one of the many reasons they almost never caught the suspects.
Two cars ahead of the Chrysler, the drivers of which were too blind to see a high-speed car chase quickly coming up behind them, blocked its path. The driver of the Chrysler apparently didn’t feel the need to swerve around them, so he plowed headlong in between the two unsuspecting vehicles.
Damn.
The two cars both flipped sideways and their momentum carried them into the air. Even above the sound of the grinding steel came the ear-piercing screams of the people inside. One of the cars was going to fly over the divider and crash into oncoming traffic. The other would land in a ditch on other side of the highway.
I stopped myself in mid-air and reached a mental hand out toward the cars. Both stopped dead in the air, but their passengers continued screaming. Unfortunately, I added to their terror as I instantly lifted them another ten feet, making the unlucky driver of one car tumble onto the ceiling of the upturned vehicle. The cop cars—which apparently had no intention of stopping—passed harmlessly underneath them. One officer looked up at me and the cars in awe as they zoomed by.
A second later, a black blur streaked past as Ethan, towing both Peter and Savanah, carried on the pursuit.
I’ve got this, Chris, Ethan thought.
Have a good time, I said as I set both cars down on the highway’s shoulder.
Landing next to the cars, I checked on the people inside. I didn’t see any serious injuries, though they were pretty shaken up. My own heart raced, both from the exertion, and the massive amounts of adrenaline coursing through my body.
“You okay?” I asked.
The man in a business suit clutched his chest like he was having a heart attack. He looked up at me through his cracked driver’s side window like I was some kind of phantom. His mouth hung open as he gasped for breath. His hand never left his chest.
This guy worried me. I really didn’t want to give him mouth-to-mouth if he went into cardiac arrest. “Are you okay?” I repeated, a little slower this time, hoping he might understand better.
His eyes finally focused on me, as if he just noticed I was there. He clenched his jaw and nodded.
An ambulance siren blared from down the highway. He wouldn’t be left here for long. “Rescue workers are on the way,” I said and ran to the other car.
It was a woman with a young boy in the back. Both seemed fine. If anything, the boy looked as if he’d had an awesome time as the car flipped end over end. I made sure they were both fine and prepared to catch up with the others. They had to be a few miles ahead by now, but I didn’t think I’d have a problem catching up.
Just as I was about to take off, the window of the woman’s car shattered. I spun to see what happened. The driver’s side window lay in pieces on the inside of the car. The woman slumped to the side, shaking, her eyes closed. Sticking out of her neck was a tiny dart.
I took off without hesitation, flying as fast as I could along the highway after the Chrysler. They were aiming for me, and I wouldn’t give them a second shot.
Guys, we’ve got Agents.
What else is new? Savanah answered.
The Meta-Human Detection Agency—one of those unofficial government agencies no one ever hears about. It seemed like every time we went out, they were waiting for us. Almost like they…
Damn. Why didn’t I see it sooner?
I put on an extra burst of speed, forcing myself past my own speed limits. Another wave of nausea hit me, but I didn’t allow myself to stop. I had to catch them.
Back off the car! I screamed in my head.
Why? Ethan asked.
It’s a trap! They’re Agents.
In the distance, Ethan and the others weaved through traffic just ahead of the squad cars, trying to catch the Chrysler that was still speeding up the highway at faster than possible speed.
How can you tell? Peter asked, always the first to believe me—probably because he still had the biggest crush on me.
Look at how old that car is. It’s crashing through other cars at a hundred miles an hour. Look at the men in the car. They haven’t looked back once to see if they’re losing their pursuers—like they don’t care at all. They supposedly just robbed a bank, but I don’t see any guns inside the car. It’s a fake!
Silence. They were considering my words, yet still maintaining their pursuit. Ethan backed off a little. Mistake.
The Chrysler’s back window folded down and the man in the back stuck his head out. He grasped something in his hand, but I couldn’t tell what at this distance. I could see that it wasn’t a gun, nor was it large in size.
He threw the object on the street behind the car. It rolled toward Ethan and the others. I closed my eyes, knowing they would have no time to avoid it.
A half-second later, an explosion rocked the air. It wasn’t anything big, but as I opened my eyes, I saw Savanah flying up in the air, screaming. The object had exploded under her skateboard.
Savanah shot through the air like a kid’s toy. I needed to catch her. At the rate she was falling, she would land on the pavement right before the pursuing police cars. Savanah couldn’t take that kind of pounding.
She reached the apogee of her arc—yeah, I pay attention in science—and began her descent back to the highway. As her body flipped end over end, her eyes caught mine for just a second. But I was still over a hundred yards away, there were only seconds before she’d be road kill.
With one last burst of speed, more than I thought my body could handle, I covered the length of a football field in less than three seconds. The strain on my neck and shoulders was intense. I thought that one of my limbs might rip off from the force of the wind rushing past.
Savanah, now only feet from the highway, reached out.
I swooped low. My hands clasped both of hers. I swung her back up and away from the pavement, letting her toes just barely scrape the blacktop in the process.
“I hate it when you’re right,” she shouted.
“How’s that different from any other time you hate me?” I replied.
I soared straight up, and for the second time waited for the police cruisers to pass harmlessly underneath me. Then I flew forward again, Savanah in hand, intent on catching that car and causing some real damage. These Agents really needed to be taught a lesson. A thought, I knew, shared by the girl dangling in my arms.
“Just drop me on the hood,” she said. “I’ll take care of the rest.”
I nodded. The Agents never resorted to deadly force before. They always tried to incapacitate us—like they only wanted to capture us. Quinn said it was because they wanted to see what made us tick. But I think there was more to it—much more.
Speeding up again, I closed the distance between us and the Chrysler. Below us, Ethan bobbed and weaved through more of the small exploding balls the Agent seemed to like dropping. I worried he wouldn’t be fast enough to evade them all. If that happened, he’d be badly injured, if not killed.
They say things always happen at the worst possible moment. In this case, while holding an extremely heavy girl, and chasing down the Agents, my cell phone rang.
“Grab my left hand!” I shouted at Savanah. She swung her right arm over so both her hands now gripped my left.
With my free hand, I reached into my pocket and retrieved my ringing cell. The screen simply read: Home.
“You’re not seriously going to answer that?” Savanah asked.
“I’ve got to. It’s my parents.”
I flipped the cell open and already heard my father’s voice blaring out of the earpiece. “Where are you? I called the school, they said you’re not in class!”
Ugh! I thought. Why did he have to call the school first?
“Sorry, Dad,” I said as calmly as I could, with 100 mph wind blowing in my face. “I’m helping Mr. Quinn in the storage room.” Quinn would vouch for me, like he had the last three times we’d been caught out of class. So I was safe.
“I don’t care what you’re doing,” my father yelled. “Your mother’s in…”
“Look out!” Savanah called.
Pulling the phone away from my ear for a second, I banked left, practically throwing Savanah from my grip, as I avoided a grenade launched from the rear of the car. The small ball spun through the air, passing within inches of my head. A loud BOOM shook the air behind us. The shockwave nearly sent me tumbling to the ground. It couldn’t have exploded more than ten meters away from us.
I put the phone back to my ear.
“Christine, what in God’s name was that? It sounded like an explosion.”
“Sorry, Dad,” I blurted. “Savanah dropped a couple of boxes, and my cell fell.”
“Okay. Listen, your mother’s gone into labor. I’m taking her to the hospital.”
I fumbled my phone—and Savanah. I would have a baby brother by the end of the day. I definitely wasn’t ready for that. I was supposed to have another month to prepare. They couldn’t just spring this on me now.
“Ummm…uhhhh,” I stammered into the mouthpiece.
“Drop what you’re doing and meet us down at the hospital. I’ll deal with Mr. Philmore tomorrow if he gives you a problem.”
“Ummm…uhhhh.”
“Chris,” said a voice from below me.
Savanah was looking up, dangling by one arm as I gripped her hand tightly. Below, the Chrysler still sped along the highway.
“Hold on a sec, Dad,” I said, then turned my attention back to Savanah. “What?” She really should have known better than to interrupt. Did she really want my father to know what we were doing?
“Drop me, Loser!” she said.
Instantly, I let her go. Savanah fell the thirty feet from my hand to the car below. It only took a second, but it felt like forever. As she fell, I brought the phone back up to my ear.
“Dad, I wouldn’t take 396.”
“What?” He sounded confused—probably because it was the first time in my life I’d given him driving advice. “Why not?”
Savanah crashed on the hood of the car, crushing the hood and the engine block and causing the car to skid to a halt. Metal crunched and bent and the windshield shattered. Sparks and bits of glass flew in all directions. Savanah stood on the hood of the car like a warrior overlooking her opponent.
“Just trust me on this. Traffic’s gonna be a killer.” I hung up before my father could say anything else.
I landed next to the car—it came across like it crashed into a brick wall. The passengers inside didn’t look any better. Besides all of them looking a little woozy, it appeared the driver had hit his head on the steering wheel pretty hard. Even though there was carnage all around, the thing that stood out the most were the MHDA patches on each of their shoulders.
“I really, really hate it when you’re right.” Savanah balled up her fist, and reached back like she was going to punch the driver.
I grabbed her arm and held tight. One of her punches would have caved in his skull. “You can’t kill him!” I yelled.
I glared at her until she dropped her arm. She knew why I wouldn’t allow it.
“You can’t keep holding back because of what happened with Tommy,” she said. “Eventually, it’s going to be us or them.”
Any further response was interrupted by the screaming sirens of the cop cars. Ethan and Peter stopped a few feet away, both looking over their shoulders at the vehicles.
“I guess it’s time we make a hasty retreat,” Ethan said.
Peter nodded his agreement.
The police cars screeched to a stop a good twenty yards away. The doors shot open. Cops jumped out, guns aimed at us.
“Freeze!” one of them shouted.
“See you back at school,” I said.
I grabbed Savanah, and flew off before anyone could react. Ethan did the same, running off and pulling Peter behind him.
I couldn’t wait to see the news that evening. I wanted to see the MHDA explain why three of their men were arrested.