Page 1 of No Capes
One
If you’ve ever been mugged, you know it happens on a night when all you want is to go home. Maybe you just finished babysitting the most unhinged six-year-old in town. Maybe her name is Lily. And maybe Lily’s dad doesn’t trust cyber money, so he pays you $200 in two crisp bills—you get double when she launches snot rockets on your pizza.
It’s probably also raining.
You know you’re being followed too. You see the guy in a dark raincoat watching as you stash your earnings not-so-safely in your pocket, and the same Raincoat Guy appears on your bus ride home.
You want to shrug it all off as a coincidence. I almost do, until it fully hits me that I’m alone, out in the cold, at midnight. As soon as I step off bus 43 into the drizzling air, only to see Raincoat Guy do exactly the same…
Fudge nuts.
In fight-or-flight mode, I always choose flight.
Unlike the Supers, I can’t actually fly. I can only duck into a misty alley and whip out my phone.
Call Dad.
It doesn’t ring—no service.
Where the heck is Golden Ace?I ask myself.What’s the point of having Supers if they’re not around when you need them?
Skyscrapers loom overhead, casting shadows over abandoned apartments and boarded-up stores. These buildings have been condemned for months, to be demolished in the name of “revamping” Capital City, meaning gentrify. I used to think Capital City was such a boring name, cliché and vague, like Central City or Metropolis. But most things about Capital City are total bummers, so now I think the name works.
Raincoat Guy’s sneakers slap the soaked sidewalk a few meters back. Something silver flashes in the puddles ahead of me—a pistol.
Well, shoot.
I take off. Empty and too narrow for cars, the backstreets form an eerie maze, which, thanks to the stranger chasing me, I’m forced to solve. Mud splatters onto my Capital High Swim Team jacket as I skid around a dusty diner. My loaded backpack throws me off balance, but I can’t ditch it—I have ten pounds of prescription kibble that Ms. Pellingham’s dobermans needASAP,and there’s no time.
“I swear on my mother’s grave!” I shout. “My family has no money. If you’re here for a ransom, we’re both screwed.”
The man grunts but doesn’t slow.Who is this guy?He’s got at least 60 pounds on me, and he’s not a scrawny seventeen-year-old, like I am (though I’m slightly above average in the height department, thank you very much).
Think, Madeline. I can’t call my dad or Kristen, my best friend, and the cops won’t help since they’d assume a Super would reach me first. Muggings are rare in Capital City anyway, ever since Golden Ace arrived five years ago, set some crime fighting records, and scared offmostof the bad guys.
Oh yes, that’s right, Capital City has real-life superheroes.
Golden Ace is our main Super. After he showed up, the other Supers basically retired. He’s got the best battle record and thecoolest powers: super strength, speed fighting, and he can fly at over 100 miles an hour, for starters.
So maybe I’m fangirling alittle. That’s because in eighth grade, he gave a self-defense talk at my school and I saw him in the hall after. He’d given me a nod. I’ve been particularly invested in his heroics ever since. The only strike against him is his Supersuit, which is mustard-yellow spandex. The best thing is he’s supposedly just a few years older than me, though it’s hard to tell because he wears a gold mask to conceal his real identity. I suppose the mask helps protect him from the bad guys… and particularly invested fans.
SPLAT. I round a corner and slam into solid cement.That’s gonna leave a mark.
CLICK, a gun cocks. I’m officially trapped. I spin to face him. Raincoat Guy inches nearer and trains his pistol at my heart, which pounds like the horizon before a tsunami.
On the wall facing me, wouldn’t you know, is graffiti of Golden Ace. In it, Golden Ace dodges lasers that a Super shoots from a pitch-black mask. The Super has on tight, obsidian armor with the letters D and S embellished on their shoulders.
Nowthatis a cool costume.
Of course, not all Supers who visit Capital City believe in using their powers for good. Every so often, we’ll have a battle between Supers as evil tries to take over the city and good tries to stop it. When that happens, graffiti, forum postings, articles in theCapital Chronicle, et cetera, pop up, although the evil Supers don’t last long. I don’t recognize the Super in this drawing—they must be very new.
SPLASH.Raincoat Guy stomps through a puddle, pressing the gun into my chest.Why do I not have pepper spray?But with crime rates so low, pepper spray hadn’t occurred to me. I’d love to haveat leastpepper spray—superpowers wouldn’t be bad either. Instead, I’m just an unprepared NSRP (Non-SuperRegular Person.) Unfortunate, because clearly, Golden Ace is busy.
Raincoat Guy shouts the most unoriginal line in the history of mugging, “Give me your money!”
I hand him my two new $100 bills and my entire wallet. He tugs my arm as he grabs it, and I shriek with pain, though the heightening rain drowns every sound. Raincoat Guy pockets the money and my school ID—maybe to make it harder to identify my body—and tosses the rest into the night. Then, his boots step closer.
Uh oh.He smells like rotten eggs and greasy hair—but that second odor could have been me.
