9AM

  The limo.

  Who was in the limo?

  That’s what was on Alex’s mind throughout physics. What was typically a fun class of formulas and the closest science came to playing with toys now was the stage for Alex’s next phase in the Deerfield Case.

  “Why didn’t the limo stop?” He thought to himself while the professor discussed acceleration due to gravity. “Was this intentional?” He thought as the X in the professor’s equation discovered Y.

  It seemed like it was, the way Kat described it made it look like an attempted hit and run. After all, if it was an accident, the driver would have stopped or at least turned around to check on Kat, right?

  But then again it was a limo, and rich people tended to be devoid of empathy or concern for people outside of their tax bracket, at least that’s what his father told him. So perhaps it wasn’t an intentional act and more the driver not wanting to face the consequences of negligent driving.

  Because who would know Kat that has access to a limo AND had intent to run her over? Moreover, why would someone WANT to run her over? There were so many assumptions that had to be made to assume it was an intentional act. 1: The person who was driving or was riding knew Kat. 2: They knew where to find her. 3: They had motive to try to run her over.

  But as the professor finally finished the practice problem on the board, so did Alex come to a conclusion: what if this wasn’t personally targeted. What if the driver, or whoever was directing him, just wanted to run someone over and just happened to pick Kat? But then that brought up why she was picked. Because she was a mutant? How could they tell, she looks like a normal girl. Because she just happened to be crossing the street? Sure, but…

  This was just a reckless driver running a red light, wasn’t it?

  He was overthinking this, wasn’t he?

  Did she just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time?

  He sighed, looked down at his lack of notes, and looked up at the next practice problem…

  And remembered what Kat said about the woman in the limo.

  THE LOOK.

  First, appearance.

  She’s in a limo, so she’s well connected and wealthy, perhaps affluent and at minimum out of touch. And the look, Kat described it as, “like she could hear what (Kat) was thinking.” That could be Kat being paranoid, but could also mean psychic, and Alex was inclined to believe psychic.

  A rich, out of touch psychic. How many of those could there be? Tracking this down should be easy.

  At the end of class, he went back to his locker and replaced his physics book with his Deerfield Case journal and started writing everything down he wanted to in class. Every theory, every idea, every hunch, and opened his phone. While he had a few minutes before the next class, he had to ask Kat about this.

  And then he stopped, he just stared at their text messages, and turned off his phone. He looked back into his journal, and reread what he had scribbled down. He sat in that locker corridor and thought, really thought, about what he KNEW about this: Kat almost got hit by a limo, she phased through it, she and the woman in the limo made eye contact as it passed through her, it sped off. Perhaps Kat really was just paranoid, scared by the headline and her running away and seeing a threat that wasn’t there. Maybe he’d let that fear interfere with his investigation. Investigation? This isn’t an investigation, it’s him concerned for a friend and her safety. Safety that can be confirmed by just texting, “Hey, how are you?” Which he did. And after the message was sent, he wrote in red ink at the bottom of the page, “Limo incident not revelant until further notice.” He hid the book in his locker under a stack of textbooks and walked off to his next class: art.

  “I’m doing alright. Found a library and am staying here for the day.” Kat answered as he walked to his art class.

  “Anything good?”

  “Been sticking around their computers.”

  “Lucky, I’m stuck in art class.”

  “Dang.”

  “Yeah, she’s got us doing pottery. I suck at pottery.”

  “I bet it’s not that bad.”

  He sat down at one of the tables, putting his backpack up against his chair, and watched as the teacher passed out each person’s in progress work from last week when they started their newest project: a mandala. When she got to Alex, he stared down at the flat, thick square of clay with a crude circle of clay on top of it. It was a regular shape, but the line thickness was inconsistent. Last week he’d struggled to come up with a design, just stared at it while the class got halfway done.

  But as he stared at the circle, a blip of inspiration came to him. He grabbed some clay from the slab on the table, and rolled it out small cylinders he placed along the inside of the circle. He made some adjustments to the distance between the clay bits and used a tool to make sure they were roughly equal size. Twelve small clay bits, like the lines on a clock.

  Then he made three larger cylinders, pressing the largest one’s end onto the center of the circle, aligning and pressing it in to face where 6 would be on a clock. Then the medium length one facing 3, and the shortest one facing 4. 4:15:30, a clock with hands that looked like an italicized F. F for Freezeframe, and only he knew what it really was: his new insignia.

  Kat was right, it really wasn’t that bad.

  When he did get out of school, he found his mom in the circle drive to pick him up. “Hi honey, how was school?” She asked as he got into the car.

  “It was ok.” Alex responded, getting seated comfortably. He looked out the window and watched the school drift off as his mom drove away back home. Today, and Thursday, he wasn’t going to Duszynski’s for work. It was something his mom had insisted on so work didn’t consume school.

  Suddenly, his train of thought was broken by his mom turning up the volume on the radio, and he zeroed in on what the host was saying, “...jewelry store in Northbrook’s Willow Festival was saved from a nighttime robbery by ‘the city’s newest superheroes.’ When police arrived to the scene late at night after an anonymous tip, they found the would-be robbers tied up and their stolen goods left at the scene.”

  It was official, he’s a superhero now. He couldn’t help but stare at the radio, how’d he make the news this fast?

  “The only eye witness accounts come from the robbers themselves, who say the pair appeared out of nowhere, moved faster than any of them could keep up with, and left them there all night.”

  Well, at least it was accurate.

  “All authorities have to go on are the names these vigilantes gave themselves: Freezeframe and Shadowcat.” The radio host continued as his mom turned down the volume again.

  “Crazy, don’tcha think?” His mom asked him.

  “Uuh, yeah, crazy.” He stumbled as she brought them into the driveway.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  He walked through the door, and the first thing he saw was the newspaper supposedly left on the table by his dziadzio when he left for work. Printed right there on the front of the paper in bold: CHICAGO FINALLY HAS SUPERHEROES.

  Crap.

  “Kat, did you see the news?”

  “Newspaper?”

  “Radio?”

  “ANYWHERE?!”

  He texted as he made his way up to his room.

  “Yeah I did.”

  “I couldn’t believe it. I’m in the news!”

  “But also not.”

  “It’s weird.”

  “REALLY weird.”

  “Weird good or weird like you wish you never signed that calling card?”

  “Werid good. It felt good stopping that robbery.”

  “Guess we gotta get used to hearing about ourselves.”

  “Dziadzio read about it in the paper.”

  “I don’t know how he feels, but I know he read it.”

  He had to sit with that thought for a while. His dziadzio knew Freezeframe. His dad probably knew about Freezeframe. He’d have to hear about it at dinner. That was going to be an interesting conversation.

  “Who’s dziadzio.”

  Oh yeah…

  “It’s Polish for grandpa.”

  “You’re Polish?”

  “Yeah, what else would I be?”

  Because where else would the name “Alexander Kazimierz Duszynski” come from?

  “Idk, I thought it was Russian.”

  Now he wasn’t sure if he should be riled or amused.

  “Was I close?”

  “Close enough, it’s a common mistake.”

  Amused it is.

  He spent the rest of the afternoon working on his English homework, which was struggling through The Outsiders’ 6th and 7th chapters. He could barely get through each page without his mind wandering to that radio announcement. Paragraphs blurred as his mind narrowed to that new reality. He stopped even pretending to read as he became distracted with what could be next. Should he keep leaving calling cards? Should he keep bringing Kat along? He wanted her to share some of the spotlight, but would she even want any of the spotlight to begin with?

  “Alex, dinner’s ready!” He heard his mom yell, interrupting his train of thought. “I’m coming!” He yelled back, getting off his bed and walking downstairs. He found his dad and dziadzio at the table already, and his mom setting out the food.

  Sitting down with the family, Alex’s dad started the conversation, “Anything happen at school today?”

  “Uh…” Alex stalled, thinking of a notable event to report, “Mr. Frome took over the school newspaper.”

  “What about Ms. Falkland?” His mother asked.

  “I dunno, he just said at the start of English she was leaving the paper and he volunteered to take over.” Alex explained further as best as he could remember.

  “You’re English teacher’s name is Frome?” His father asked, recognizing the last name.

  “Yeah, why?” Alex asked.

  “Just asking cause I had a case a few weeks back with a client with that same last name. Said he worked as an English teacher.” His dad divulged.

  “What was it about?” Alex asked, vaguely remembering Mr. Frome coming into class with a wrist brace a few weeks ago.

  “Car accident, all I can say really.” His dad finished, returning to the first subject, “To circle back, maybe try joining the newspaper. Get some brownie points with him, get him to be more lenient on grading your work.”

  “I’m already doing really well in his class.” Alex explained. There’s only been one assignment, an essay, and he’d gotten an A on it. Plus, he didn’t feel confident or sociable enough to join the newspaper.

  “Still, couldn’t hurt.” His dad insisted, before finally focusing on his food again.

  “Speaking of newspapers,” Dziadzio finally spoke up, “Alex, did you see there’s superheroes in Chicago now?”

  It was going to come up eventually.

  “Uh yeah, mom and I heard about it on the radio.” Alex agreed, trying to sound like it was truly news, “Ho-how do you feel about that?”

  Dziadzio stopped poking at his food for a moment to conjure a proper answer. “I’d like to know more about him.” He finally answered.

  “My thought exactly,” Dad agreed, “I mean, what do we really know about this Freezeframe? We don’t even know his powers.”

  “We know less about Shadowcat, I wanna know her deal.” His mother pointed out. Alex hadn’t considered if they’d bring her up.

  “You know, I was just gonna bring that up,” His dad said in the middle of a bite, “Cloak and Dagger, Ant-Man and The Wasp, when superhero duos debut, they’ve got some sort of reason for being a package deal. For those two examples, it’s romantic. So what’s Freezeframe and Shadowcat’s thing?”

  “Alex, you have been quiet. What do you think of Freezeframe?” Dziadzio asked, time to think of something. Alex stalled, staring at his food while deciding on what he could say without incriminating himself.

  “I think it’s good there’s finally a superhero in Chicago,” he softly began, “There’s a lot of crimes that could be prevented if we’d had someone like them.”

  “Hmm, well put.” Dziadzio simply said.

  “There’s also the issue of escalation. You see it with the police, and it’s no different with superheroes,” his dad brought up, “Think about it. Stark starts flying around in that suit, and people start trying to replicate it or shut it down, and now we have Whiplash and The Mandarin. Captain America comes out of the ice, suddenly HYDRA’s more visible. The X-Men start stirring up things with their actions, now we have mutants across the country trying to get attention. Hell, Spider-Man has a whole rogues gallery tearing up New York ever since he came onto the scene.”

  “So you think because there’s superheroes in Chicago now, suddenly we’re gonna get supervillains too?” His mom challenged.

  “I’m noticing a pattern, hon, and based on those trends, it’s bound to happen sooner or later.” His dad asserted.

  “Hopefully when they do arrive, it’s less damaging than the ones in New York or California.” Dziadzio expressed.

  “Right? Last thing we need is something like Galactus showing up.” His dad said, concluding his point.

  After that, the conversation around Freezeframe and Shadowcat died out, and the table fell into a typical silence. Alex sat with his dad’s thoughts on escalation. Who would end up coming out of the woodworks to challenge him and Kat? He’d never really heard of any superpowered villains in Chicago, no news of caped criminals. Then again, they’d never heard of supervillains from New York until its superheroes emerged. Would they really appear just because he’s visible?

  Returning to his room, Alex tried to get his mind off of the dinner conversation with the book he was reading previously. Finishing a chapter, he dropped it in his backpack, went back to his bed, and stared at his closet. His eyes focused at the door, at a specific section of the door, visualizing the drawstring bag behind the door and a few layers of unorganized clothes. He slid off the bed, and walked over to the closet. Opening the door, he pulled away the pile of clothes, and found the drawstring bag, containing all that was Freezeframe. He pulled it out, slowly opening it to reveal the equipment he’d packed and the cowl he’d worn.

  “Alex, you in here?” He heard his mom yell through his bedroom door, taking him out of his head before a inner dialogue could begin. “Just a sec, mom!” He yelled, yanking the bag closed and burying it under the clothes, closing the closet, and going to open his bedroom door. “Everything alright?” He asked as he opened the door, his mom inches from him on the other side.

  “Just wanted to check in. I know dinner was a bit heavy, what with everything going on,” His mom reassured him, “You didn’t talk much. Figured you’d be more excited about a local hero.”

  “I just… didn’t feel like talking tonight,” Alex weakly excused.

  “Oh, is everything alright?” Mom asked, beginning to grow concerned.

  “I’m fine, mom.” Alex tried to reassure her.

  “Something going on at school?” She asked.

  “School’s fine.” He responded.

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Alright, well if you need to talk about something, you know you can come to me, right?” She asked tenderly.

  “Yes mom.” Alex affirmed.

  “You doing homework?” She asked, as if it was required to ask.

  “Yes, I just finished the reading for English,” Alex said, mostly true.

  “Okay then, I’ll leave you to it.” She finished, softly closing the door.

  After tonight he should find a better place to hide that bag, she might try to organize his closet when he’s at school and stumble onto it.

  “Dad’s gonna shower first, after he’s done you can get in.” His mom texted him

  “??” Was all he sent back.

  Then he got another text, this time from Kat.

  “You gonna be out tonight?”

  Alex thought about it for a moment, still weighing his dad’s dinnertime arguments. Part of him believed him, but the majority wasn’t as cynical as his father.

  “Yep.”