Page 16 of No Capes
Water hits my shoulders like a jet stream as Aaron flips off our wall. Fox pulls on his goggles, and I do the same. I make sure to push off before he does.
Six
My dad isn’t home when I return that evening, but I’m not surprised to have the apartment to myself. He likes to visit the city library a few evenings a week. It’s a homey, red brick building with floor-to-ceiling windows and a robust automobile history collection. On the third floor, there’s enough of a view that a corner of our old house is visible, if you know to look for it. He claims he can focus better there when he’s working overtime and filling out timesheets. It’s nice to see that he’s not taking Arielle’s “don’t go out after dark” threat too seriously. It also means I can have whatever I want for dinner.
I hunker down at the kitchen table with a plate full of tuna sandwiches, carrot sticks, and peanut butter, my favorite foods. Arielle had worked us incredibly hard today, like we were training for a war against killer whales. (As Kristen has said, “whoever named them killer whales is a moron. They clearly should have been named panda whales.” She’s all about fashion.)
I check my phone for the time: 7:05 P.M. I still need to do my homework, but I allow myself a break. This break could be five minutes or forty, but I power on my laptop, ready to take my chances. I wipe sandwich crumbs off the keyboard and jump to my favorite website: Golden Ace’s official fan club. I am a loyal Goldie.
Fans run the site, which hosts blog posts, Golden Ace sightings, news articles of his heroic needs, and a Wiki with everything we know about him, like his powers and every move he’s made during his coolest battles. The forum even has a leaderboard to track Golden Ace’s stats against other Supers, like their number of punches thrown versus taken and their number of bad guys defeated, which all confirms his spot as the Number One Super in Capital City. If there’s anything nerds love more than statistics or Superheroes, it’s statisticsforSuperheroes.
Most Supers that show up in Capital City get a Wiki, but only Golden Ace has a whole fan club. A few years ago, someone tried to start a worship service for him. Golden Ace had to film a video asking people not to associate him with religion; he’s not into the whole social media “worship my presence” thing that Flare had been going for on Capital City 1. Golden Ace rarely sticks around for a selfie after he helps someone. People respect his wish, but “Holy Aces” is still a common phrase around Capital City, especially because he hates it.
One rule, earning a penalty of being immediately blocked from the site, is that no one can post anything that could help reveal his secret identity. We’ve seen that movie. Exposing your city’s hero never ends well, and it should be his choice to reveal himself. I’m sure other fans keep their own lists of clues though. I know I do. Encrypted, obviously. I know he’s 6’l”, somehow disguises his voice with his costume, has an extremely well-concealed hideout somewhere in the city, and is at least twenty. Golden Ace debuted here five years ago, and I highly doubt anyone younger than fifteen would have enough life knowledge to outwit other Supers the way he had.
People have searched for his hideout over the years, and everyone has either come up empty or has kept his secret. When I was twelve, I fantasized that his hideout would bein a treehouse, up so high that the canopy would disguise a clandestine entrance and a hidden elevator would bring him down to a room full of gadgets. Now, I realize all the trees in Capital City shed their leaves during autumn, and none of them are thick enough to hide anything.
I don’t check the site every day anymore. There aren’t as many updates as there used to be (no one has posted about where Golden Ace could have been the night I so memorably met Raincoat Guy and D.S.), but the Goldies have grown to a group of over 58,000. I click through the latest posts. Are people talking about Dark Static?
There.
A new discussion topic began at 5:00 A.M. this morning:
Golddigger99:WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT THIS. I thought D.S. was gonna be a joke but not LOLing anymore. He can start fires from the sky?
MrsAce:GA where were you????????????
G0ldfishy:Prob asleep. He’s not immortal.
KingMid@s:Chill. GA beat worse than D.S. Remember Nightsight? She was invisible!
Golddigger99:Nightsight didn’t fly.
KingMid@s:Invisible evil > flying evil.
Golddigger99:STILL EVIL.
(KingMid@s has left the discussion)
G0ldfishy:Y’all get the crime watch alert? $10k reward for anyone w/ info on D.S. Courtesy of Dottie Milligan.
MrsAce:is Zane GA???????????
(MrsAce has been blocked from the discussion by the moderators)
YellowGlitter: D.S. SUCKS.
YellowGlitter:Why attack Milligan? Why not Bridges?
Golddigger99:Wondering same thing.
I continue scrolling, but the next fifty posts are from Goldies either wishing Golden Ace good luck or declaring that they’re not worried about Dark Static. I’m not so sure. Dark Static knew things about Capital City, especially its crime scenes, that I didn’t expect. Does he also know something about Dr. Milligan that no one else does?
What happened to your mom was no accident.
I drag my laptop closer. Its blue light strains my eyes, and the keys clack sharply as I type into my browser’s search bar: “Meredith Roberts car accident Capital City.”
Only one article answers my search, the same article I used to read four times a day. I skim through it, not sure what I’m looking for.
