Secret Super (Book 1)

36. Just in Case

After poring over the files, two things became clear: The superhero disappearances were getting more and more frequent, and the superheroes were discovering more about Xavier and his organizations.

"No wonder Harrison was so stressed out this year," Kara said. "What with the disappearances and the Council still not trusting him, they were probably threatening him and grilling him for more information."

She felt a rush of guilt when she remembered she was likely the cause of a lot of that stress, ever since Harrison had needed to cover for her when he was already in trouble.

"Hey, look at this." Zadia frowned. "It's a file compiling everything they know about Xavier's organizations and Xavier. So they must know it's all linked together. And the time-stamp is from a week ago. And . . . wow, they have a list of possible locations already." She looked up at Kara. "One of the locations is the abandoned factory I was in, I'm almost sure. They know what his last location was."

"Shit, they're gonna find him," Kara said. "We can't let them do that! I have to get to Harrison before they do."

"It's not just that." Zadia stood, chewing on her lip. "If they find his organizations . . . Look, I know what he's doing is bad and all, kidnapping supers, but for whatever reason he's also helping stop pollution and . . . and fixing some of the problems the supers don't care about, and—"

"Z, are you saying you want to help him? He wants to eradicate all supers!"

"N-no, that's not what I'm saying. Just that we need the resources of a big organization like his, but that works outside the law, not like the EPA, to stop pollution. And what about his people? He's been manipulating all of them; we could convince them to join us instead! But we can't let the superheroes destroy everything!"

"I think you're right. And think I know what we need to do after we rescue Harrison," Kara said.

"Oh yeah? What's that?"

"Both the superheroes and supervillains are after us. But you don't really wanna spend the rest of your life running away, do you? I'm definitely not gonna. We can't support Xavier, but we gotta change something about the superhero system."

"We're young and dumb enough to try," Zadia said, with a weak smile.

"What if we take over Xavier's organizations? We need his resources to change anything, which means we can't let the superheroes find him."

"Look at you! Planning things."

"Sort of. Anyway, that's what I'm going to do, I don't know about you. But . . . if you wanna . . ."

"Are you kidding?" Zadia broke into a real smile. "I'm with you. Obviously."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, seriously."

"Okay." Kara took a deep breath. "So we should start planning."

*     *     *     *     *

It took five hours and thirty-seven minutes, but they finally outlined an entire plan and recited it to death.

"You know," Zadia said. "It's crazy. It's so crazy it might work." They were sitting on the carpeted floor, facing each other, with the plan drawn out on the comm between them. Zadia drew her knees up against her chest.

"That's my specialty." Kara nudged her. "D'you think you're ready?"

Zadia drew in a breath. She had no idea, but now wasn't the time to falter. "Yeah, I think so. What about you?"