AFTER SCHOOL, the dance prep committee stayed after to help set up. The dance was at the end of this week, and out of some happy mood, the principal had decided to let us set up early and allow us to not have gym for the next few days. Needless to say, we were all ecstatic.

The previous assignments didn't really matter; we were all over the gym, doing whatever job we saw or that needed to be done. I was currently on the top rung of a ladder, hanging up one end of the banner as Ben hung up the other. Fei was on the ground, directing us left and right or up and down to get the banner in perfect place.

Kelsey, the head of the committee, was going around making sure everyone else was doing their work properly. I had to admit—she'd done a great job coordinating this thing. The balloons would be put up on Friday, but almost everything else was set up. Streamers hung along the walls, washing the gym in our school colors, and a cardboard cutout of our mascot stood in one corner where people could pick up photo booth props and take pictures with each other. A DJ stand was almost set up.

Ben and I were finally able to get Fei's approval for the banner, and after I climbed down the ladder and took a few steps back to see it from a distance, I was happy to see that it was straight. Mostly. It was good enough; I didn't think anyone would grill us if the banner was a degree or two off.

Getting the banner up had been the hard part—with Ben holding one corner and me holding the other, we had climbed the ladder very carefully to keep the banner from folding or wrinkling. It had taken so long to simply go up the ladder, and with Fei's passion for straightness, we took a lot of time setting it up, and everyone had finished everything else there was left to do already.

So, I picked up my backpack from the ground and left. I decided that Red Soldier needed something better to do than witnessing things, running into an alley to change, and then helping, so I figured out that I'd do something similar to patrol. In truth, since we hadn't had a superhero in years, I had no idea how people would react. Would they just look and leave me alone, like I wanted? Or would they take out their phones and record every move I made? I hoped it was the former.

I changed into everything this time: the mask that covered the space around my eyes, the jacket, and because I had time, I actually put on the pants and the sneakers. I left all of my stuff in my backpack in my room, and since Mom was at the bakery, I didn't need to worry about her.

I stood on top of a building, looking down below, trying to calm my nerves. I flexed my fingers in my gloves. A little boy saw me and pointed at me, tugging on the hem of his mother's dress. She saw me, waved, and then pulled her son along into a sandwich shop. He waved at me and smiled as he was taken away. I waved back and returned the smile.

I was out for only an hour and a half. The first half of that was spent with me stopping a robber who'd stolen a purse, and then I had to look for lady who owned it. She turned out to be a sweet old woman who insisted on giving me a hug, and of course I'd obliged. The rest of the time was uneventful, just me going around, being on my phone occasionally, and waving at friendly people who waved at me.

When I got home, I went through my own room's window, because it wasn't on the front of the building and no one would see me. I quickly changed and then stepped out into the rest of the apartment. I was doing my homework while eating a croissant when Mom got home. She entered with a huff, tossing her bag onto the couch and then plopping down next to it.

"Busy day?" I asked after I swallowed a bite of croissant.

"Mmmhmmm." She stood up, pushing strands of hair away from her face. "We leave at seven."

I had to stop myself from groaning. I hadn't forgotten about going to Dana's house tonight, but the sudden reminder had me feeling annoyed again. I quickly shoved down the rest of my croissant and hurried to finish my homework, because I knew Dana would have some snarky remark to say if I had to finish it at her house.

At seven, we got in Mom's car, and it took about fifteen minutes to get to the Edgar home. They lived in a two-story house in the suburbs, in a nice, quiet neighborhood lined with trees and shrubs. I recognized Grandma Immie's car in the driveway, and Uncle Frank's. There were a few others that probably belonged to the direct relatives of the Edgars. Honestly, I probably didn't know most of these people.

Grandma Immie opened the door for us, and whatever hostility there had been between her and Mom that day, it seemed to melt as they hugged and greeted each other warmly. I was given a kiss on the cheek by her, and we were ushered inside. Mom set down the brownies she'd made on the table, and she greeted Mrs. Edgar with a kind handshake, because I was pretty sure they'd never seen each other before.

Uncle Frank, Mom's twin, threw his arms around me, pulling me into a bone-crushing hug. Remember when I said that men of the Maguire family are usually never tall? My Uncle Frank was an excellent example: he was five-foot-seven, which was the exact height I was, and that wasn't even where the similarities ended. Despite me being half Maguire and half something else, you'd never guess that I was anything but a straight-up Maguire clone. I looked exactly like  Uncle Frank: same shade of brown in the eyes, same shade of brown in the hair, same bone structure, same skin that wasn't Irish-pale but still fair enough to burn a little too easily for our liking (if I wasn't more careful about sunscreen, I would have a mask-shaped tan line on my face soon).

Uncle Frank brought me to his wife, Aunt Lisa, and we both exchanged hellos. Uncle Frank had married young—right after he got out of high school—and his daughter, my cousin Elizabeth, lived in Chicago with her girlfriend and worked as a news reporter. Because there was such an age gap between us, Elizabeth and I never had the chance to get as close as Frank and Mom, but the few times I had met her, we'd gotten along well.

I left Uncle Frank, Mom, Grandma Immie, and Aunt Lisa to talk to each other, and I made my way over to the kitchen. A package of water bottles was sitting on the counter. I picked one up and opened it, and I was raising the opening to my lips when Mr. and Mrs. Edgar found me. Mrs. Edgar was as short as me, and clearly Dana got her height from Mr. Edgar, who was well over six feet tall.

Mr. Edgar put on oven mitts and took a tray out of the oven as Mrs. Edgar smiled at me. "Hello, Peter," she said, and her smile was so genuine that I wondered if Dana had told her mother at all about how much she couldn't stand me.

"Hello, Mrs. Edgar," I replied, closing the water bottle. Her eyes flicked to my backpack, which I'd brought along because I had something to do, and she pointed up at the ceiling. "Dana and Ben are upstairs in her room," she said. "If you want to go join them."

My heart leapt with joy. I'd absolutely forgotten that Ben was supposed to be here tonight, and I hadn't even mentioned the family gathering to him. I thanked her and went up the stairs. Dana opened her door as if she knew I was there, and she let me in without a word.

Her room was subtle shades of pink and purple. The walls were bare, most of the back wall taken up by a curtained window that overlooked the backyard, and she sat back down on her bed. Ben, my glorious, life-saving Irrelevant Goose was sitting at her desk with his laptop open. Scattered around him were snippets of balsa wood.

He perked up when he saw me. "Peter!" he exclaimed as I closed the door behind me. "Jeez. I had no idea there was a party tonight."

"It's not a party," Dana replied, rolling her eyes. She leaned against her headboard and stretched her legs in front of her. "It's just a dumb family gathering. Right, Peter?"

I couldn't tell if she was trying to relate to me or trying to intimidate me, but I only said, "Yeah."

"We're trying to write an report," she said. "So try not to be distracting."

"Okay."

I sat down on the ground, my back against the wall, and my side against her dresser. I guess I'd expected her cold attitude, but I was surprised that she hadn't thrown me out of her room and told me to go hang downstairs. I actually felt grateful that she let me up here.

She and Ben were silent, but they were both on their laptops, so I guessed they were working via the Google Docs sharing option. The non-interaction would only last so long; eventually, they would have to start building the bridge together. so I stuck both earbuds in and listened to music as I pulled my laptop out of my backpack. I had...other things in there, too, but I'd have to work on that stuff when Dana wasn't around.

"Dana!" It was Mrs. Edgar, calling from the foot of the stairs. Her voice was so loud that I heard her through my music.

Dana shut her laptop closed. "Yes?" she asked, equally as loud.

"Can you set up the TV so we can show the home videos?"

"Coming," Dana yelled back, shoving her pillows to the side as she got up from her bed. "Don't mess anything up," she warned us. "This will take at least half an hour. Our TV is crap."

With that, she went downstairs, leaving her door halfway open. Her footfalls made enough noise that I could tell when she was off the stairs.

As soon as she was out of earshot, Ben swiveled the chair toward me and gave me a lopsided grin. "I am so happy you're here," he said.

I forced a smile. "Happy to be here."

I crept closer to the door and pushed it a little more so that there was only an inch of space between the door itself and the frame. Then I brought my backpack with me and perched on the edge of Dana's bed, and Ben turned in his chair to face me.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

I took the flash drive out of my backpack pocket and plugged it into my laptop, waiting for a Henderson Technologies program to load. "I need to find this tracker," I said, glancing up to make sure Dana hadn't come back yet.

Ben leaned over to peek into my backpack, and his eyes widened. "You brought all your stuff?"

I winked. "I thought you'd like to see."

"Can I?"

"Go for it."

I looked back and forth between my loading screen and the door. I would be able to hear if anyone came up the stairs, and in that case, I could simply just turn myself away so that they couldn't see my laptop screen. Not that they would even care, they'd think I was playing a game.

Ben was now fumbling around with the jacket, turning it inside out and looking at it thoroughly. "Um, Peter, did you know this was here? You never mentioned it."

I looked up, expecting him to be observing a part of the jacket I haven't used yet, but it was turned inside out, and he was pointing at something "Is that..." I said as I leaned closer, "a USB port?"

He nodded.

I straightened, confused. That seemed pretty important. Why didn't Jenny tell me about it? Now that I think about it...there was a lot more she could have explained. I took the jacket from his hands. "Do you have a cable?" I asked.

And my best friend, the wonderfully magnificent Irrelevant Goose, grinned like a clever fox and pulled a cable out of his backpack pocket, nodding like he'd just pulled out Excalibur.

The program was still loading on my screen, so we plugged my jacket into Ben's laptop instead. The history report could wait. I glanced at the door, making sure no one was coming up, and then I stood next to Ben and leaned over his shoulder.

The USB that connected to my jacket was the exact program that the flash drive was still loading on my laptop.

"Maybe yours has a virus?" Ben said, jerking his head toward my laptop.

"Probably," I muttered. My laptop was very virus prone; I really needed to fix that. I took the flash drive out, not wanting it to get corrupted or anything, and instead I put my focus onto Ben's screen.

On his screen was basically what I considered a manual of everything my costume could do. "Wait, what's that?" I asked, pointing at something.

Ben clicked on what I was pointing at, and then I realized the purpose of the other mask Ms. Castro had given me. I had two: the space-around-the-eyes one that I used all the time, and the one that would go completely over my head. That had a lot of features, apparently, that I didn't even know were there. Jeez. Jenny was really holding out on me.

"You're telling me you didn't even notice?" Ben asked, laughing.

"No," I grumbled, although I could see why he was laughing. If I'd looked at my stuff more carefully, I would have noticed. I should have noticed. "Can you find the tracker on here?"

Ben hummed as he clicked around, and then he pulled up a map of all of New York City. He zoomed in on Queens, where a cluster of red dots were over the Edgar address. I looked at my gloves in my backpack, knowing that the cluster was of all the trackers I still had with me, the ones I hadn't used.

And, there was one blinking red dot somewhere else, the one I had used. I was sure that the guy would be in a house or something, and that I'd have to wait for him to be somewhere shady so I could catch him with evidence, but as Ben zoomed in closer on the map, I realized that the guy was in the corner of a park, next to an old subway tunnel.

A park. Old subway tunnel. At this time.

"Ben!" I exclaimed loudly. He jumped and looked at me with a What the heck is wrong with you? expression.

"What?" he asked, straightening himself on his chair because he'd almost fallen out of it.

"He's in a park!" I said, a little quieter this time. "This is perfect! I don't know when I'll get the chance again!"

He raised an eyebrow and jerked his head toward the door.

"Will you cover for me?" I asked breathlessly, already contemplating just what I'd have to do.

"Maybe you should call the cops instead?"

"And tell them what? That I put a tracker on a guy I couldn't catch? I'm not sure they trust me yet, and I want them to. If I can do this, I can prove that Red Soldier can actually help."

Ben shrugged. "Sure, then. What should I tell Dana when she gets back up?"

"Bathroom?" I suggested, shrugging. I started changing, praying that Dana didn't come in at this moment—not that I wore embarassing or weird underwear, but I don't think Dana would like to see me like that.

I shoved my feet into the sneakers and then pulled on the head-covering mask. My first thought was that my ears felt weird, pressed against my head, and that my hair would look seriously flattened when I took this off, but I quickly glanced at Dana's door mirror to see that I didn't look stupid. Thank goodness. The last thing I needed was to feel like I was playing dress-up. Ms. Castro did her work well.

Ben whistled as I pulled on the gloves, completing the getup. I shoved my clothes and the sneakers I'd originally wore into my backpack and swung it over my shoulders, but I left the laptop on the ground, open on a game. Then I heard Dana's footsteps.

I gave him a quick salute and then climbed out her open window, hanging there for a few seconds before I let go and landed on my feet in their backyard. I looked at the hardened leather on my jacket that formed a kind of cuff around my left wrist. I had noticed it before, but I thought that it was simply a harder leather, but according to the program, there was a small computer built in. I held my breath and waved my right hand over it. The program said that my own hand, through some scanning tech, would activate the computer, or the glove itself would, and since I had the glove on, it should work.

A little holographic screen appeared above my wrist, and I almost yelped in surprise. Thank goodness. The map with its red blinking dot was in display. If I ran, I would reach that park in a few minutes.

I crept underneath the backyard window and then took off in a sprint after waving my hand over the cuff area to deactivate the hologram screen. The sun had set only minutes ago, and the shadows and trees gave me good cover as I ran through the streets, occasionally opening and checking the map to make sure I was going in the right direction.

My phone buzzed in my pocket halfway into the run. I answered it without checking the number, because I was sure who it was. "Yes, Ben?" I asked, still running.

"How long is this gonna take?" he asked, whispering, so I assumed that Dana was nearby but mostly out of earshot.

"I don't know," I said, swerving right. "Thirty minutes? Depends."

"Well, hurry," he said. "It's your Aunt Lisa's birthday and they're cutting a cake soon and they're asking me where you are and I said bathroom and now I think that they think you're constipated."

Crap. I'd completely forgotten it was Aunt Lisa's birthday. "I'll be there, don't worry," I said, and I hung up as the park came into view.

I slowed down and climbed over the fence that closed off the park at night. I could hear voices, and I crouched down low as I walked, making sure to stay in the way of trees and shrubs so that I was covered.

I stopped behind a tree, leaning just a little bit to the side. The fabric that covered my eye holes didn't affect my vision at all, and I could see the scene clearly. Two cars: one truck, and one family-friendly looking station wagon.

There were three men. One of them I recognized because of his getup: the same black clothes he'd worn at the armored truck robbery. I'd gotten very lucky that he'd kept his shoes on, and that he hadn't noticed the little tracker I'd put on one of them.

The other two were standing close to each other, and one of them was shuffling his feet, staring down at the ground awkwardly, refusing to make eye contact with the robber guy. I could see that the robber guy had the upper hand here. The awkward guy's companion, whose hair was bright red, also looked nervous, but at least he was looking the robber in the eye.

The robber was leaning lazily against the back of the truck, one ankle crossed over the other. "I can tell you where I got 'em," he said, "but I can't get them for ya."

The awkward one was still staring at the ground. His companion, the redhead, shrugged. "Too scared, are you?" he asked, a small smile creeping onto his face.

The robber only shrugged. "These weapons are cool," he said simply, as if cool were a good word to replace destructive. "The team did a lot of work to steal them, and they sell 'em for quite a price. I paid a pretty penny to get those blasters."

The redhead's smile got bigger. "Until Red Soldier destroyed one of them, you mean," he said smugly.

I had to admit: at the mention of my name, I was feeling pretty smug, too.

I was trying to figure this out. The robber himself wasn't one of the ones who'd stolen the weapons from Henderson Tech...and that meant he'd bought it from the people who did. Which meant that even if I caught him, I wouldn't get these weapons off the streets.

"So what about it?" the robber snapped at the mention of his failure. He shrugged again, regaining his calm. "You wanna buy? There's a warehouse a few blocks from here. Go there. Right now."

The redhead said a quick thanks, and then he and his companion got into their station wagon and drove off. I waited until the robber left in his truck before I pulled up my map, finding the warehouse where they'd buy the weapons.

I pulled out my phone and called Ben, and he answered on the first ring. "Where are you?" he asked.

"There's going to be an arms deal, not too far," I whispered, in case anyone was around. "I need to find these people who stole the weapons."

Ben groaned. "Just hurry up, please," he pleaded. "I don't know how much longer I can cover for you."

"Copy that. See you soon," I said, and I hung up.

I started running toward the warehouse.