THE NEXT DAY at school, Ben stared at my arm almost the entire morning. My arm was covered by my sleeve, but he knew that I had the computer on there, and he seemed to really want to see it.

So, when we were walking down the hallway toward the cafeteria for lunch, I pulled up my sleeve and showed it to him. Last night, I'd had to carefully cut open the leather on my jacket sleeve to take out the computer cuff, which kind of looked like a flat, black watch with a few grooves and edges. Now it was on my arm, just a few inches below my wrist, and he snickered when he saw it.

"It looks like a bracelet," he said.

I raised an eyebrow defensively. "What, men can't wear bracelets?"

He raised an eyebrow to counter mine. "Men? We're teenage boys."

"That counts."

"No it doesn't."

"Hi, guys," Fei said, falling in step next to me. She leaned forward so that she could see Ben, too, when she asked, "Excited for the dance?"

"Oh yes," Ben replied enthusiastically. "I've been working on this new move."

I groaned. "Not another one."

He gave me a look. "I promise you won't end up on the floor this time."

"That's exactly what you said last time."

Fei laughed and pulled up the video of last time on her phone. Ben shoved past me to get a better look, and I just shook my head and stared straight ahead as we walked. Even though I was trying not to pay attention, I heard the video of last year's dance. I heard Ben's scream as he flailed his arms, and I heard my shout of surprise when he fell right on top of me, and I heard Dana's cackle of laughter and Fei screaming, "I got it on video!" Despite the fact that it was an event I would never live down, I still smiled.

And then we got into the cafeteria, and my smile quickly gave way to an eye roll and a shake of the head. It was loud, annoyingly loud. I always told myself that I would never be the kind of person who hates on the freshmen, but they were so loud.

So loud, in fact, that Ben and Fei and I exchanged wary glances, and we made a silent agreement to go up to the library instead. This Saturday was their big competition in Boston, and they were still studying avidly, but the library meetings had been cancelled for now because of everything that was going on: the dance tomorrow night, the statewide tests coming up, and just plain old schoolwork in general.

The three of us settled down at a table, and Ayomikun and Kevin joined us within minutes. I suddenly thought of my heart-to-heart conversation with Mom, when I'd told her that I never wanted to bother anyone, and I realized with dismay that I never let myself connect to these people. How often did we see each other? Almost every day. But, I never kept up a close friendship with anybody but Ben.

"Why don't we all meet before the dance?" I asked. I'll admit it: I asked timidly, like I was afraid of rejection—to be fair, I really was—and I couldn't ignore the sharp blinks of surprise that were directed my way. I knew what they were thinking. Of everyone here, why would I, the recluse, be the one who wanted to hang out?

"It was just a thought," I continued, spearing a piece of lettuce with my fork and staring down at my salad. "So we can hang out. Before you all go to Boston for the weekend."

Fei tilted her head a bit, thinking on it. "I'm down. We can meet at my house, if that's okay."

Ayomikun shrugged. "Sure."

One by one, we all agreed to meet at Fei's house an hour before the dance. Ben cast me a look that was a mix of surprise and pride and pure kindness, and I ended up smiling down at my salad.

My eyes wandered to my arm, and I pretended that I had to go to the bathroom. I closed the stall door and locked it before pushing my sleeve up and turning on the hologram computer.

The red dot was active.

It was active. Right now. And it might not be later.

Which meant I had to act now.

I cursed under my breath, turning off the hologram after memorizing the location, and I got out of the bathroom. Wow. First I snuck out in the dark, and now I was leaving school in the middle of the day. I was definitely going to have detention tomorrow, and the principal might even ban me from going to the dance, but none of that mattered. I had to take care of this.

I strolled through the halls like that was what I was supposed to be doing, like my friends weren't waiting for me to return to the library, like I wasn't about to go through the side door and not come back until tomorrow morning. No one stopped me. No one suspected me.

When I was two blocks away from school, I picked up my pace and called Kavanagh. I wasn't surprised that he didn't answer, but this time a cheerful but monotone answering voice gave me the option to leave a message. I waited for the beep and said, "Kavanagh, I'm tracking down the people who stole the weapons. The Meyer Building." I paused. "Wish me luck."

Then I hung up and rushed on home, because even though I had a majority of my costume with me in my backpack, the other mask was under my bed. Instead of going through the lobby where someone on my floor might see me and ask why I wasn't at school, I went up the fire escape instead and crawled through my window. I stuck the computer cuff back into my sleeve, and because the cut I had made was small, it stayed inside. As I changed into everything as fast as I could, I ran through the plan in my head. The Meyer Building was a medium skyscraper in uptown Manhattan, home to a news agency and a few minor magazine offices. The quickest way to get there would be train.

Which meant that Red Soldier had to catch the train...which would be leaving in two minutes.

I ran over rooftops, my eyes following the distant train that was now pulling out of the station, but I didn't slow down. I went faster and jumped onto the station, and when I realized that there was no possible way for me to get into the train, I hopped on top of it.

I know, I know. Transportation isn't glorious, but it's a necessity. I had to get there somehow.

Crouching low to keep my balance, I looked up at Manhattan, urging the train to go faster. I pressed a button beneath my ear on my head-covering mask, which I've decided to call a helmet from now on, even though it barely looks like a helmet, and my lenses brightened and came to life. The computer built into the helmet named all of the buildings and structures for me, and I swiveled my head around, taking it all in. Freedom Tower. Empire State Building. H&M. All the bridges and ferry lines. The subway routes. All of it was available, but using my cuff computer to control the helmet, I shut down the label display and focused only on the tracker dot at the Meyer Building.

Along with cutting the computer cuff out of my sleeve last night, I had also looked at the entire program, learning the full potential of what I had available for my use. All of this would have come in handy much earlier, if Jenny had told me to look at the program, but what was done was done.

When the train made it into Manhattan, I didn't even wait for it to come to a full stop before I hopped off and starting tearing down the street toward the Meyer Building. I ran through green lights, waving my hand in apologies to the drivers who stopped for me, and I could hear police sirens.

In the corner of my vision, a map of the section of Manhattan I was running through displayed me as a green dot, the tracker on the Meyer Building as a red dot, and there were a few blue dots, all going toward the building. Police cars. I forced myself to run faster. If the cops had been called to the scene, than something had definitely happened.

When I stopped in front of the Meyer Building, the police had already blocked the street and set up a barricade. People were using their phones to take videos, directing them all up...

I craned my neck, realizing that the dot was at the top of the building. Wonderful. With all of the noise down here, whoever is up there had been alerted a long time ago...yet they were still here. The man with the remote. He was waiting for me, I was sure of it.

"Red Solder!" An officer barked.

I turned my head to look at him, at his expression that was both hopeful and untrusting at the same time. I motioned toward the building. "If you could take care of the people running out," I said, "I can take care of whatever's up there."

He hesitated, but one glance at the steady line of people streaming out of the Meyer Building had him convinced. He gave me the slightest nod and walked away to where his post had been before, and I ran through the front doors.

I found the nearest elevator and punched the button for the top level, and I couldn't believe that while a building was being emptied and while criminals waited on the roof, I was here, listening to crappy but catchy elevator music while bouncing on my toes and shaking myself loose.

And then the elevator stopped when I was only two-thirds up the building, and I glanced up at the flickering lights. "No no no!" I exclaimed, pushing the button about fifty more times. "The music's not crappy. It's great! Move!"

But the elevator wasn't in the mood for my apologies, so I managed to stick my hands in between the doors and pried them open myself.

I stepped out onto the floor and was about to run toward the stairs when I saw my first opponent: Screwdriver. He was at the end of the hall, sans hoverboard, thankfully, but my enemy, the stupid cuff, was on his wrist and ready.

I started running toward him, getting a precious second's worth of a head start, and when the beam came toward me, I jumped as high as I could into the air, sailing right over it and crashing into him instead. He lashed out at me, trying to poke me in the lenses, but the helmet was sturdy, and he hurt his own fingers instead. I kicked him in the stomach and threw him into a desk, and when he stood up, he looked loopy and dizzy.

I knew I should restrain him or something, but I had to get to the roof. I eyed the floor-to-ceiling windows that lined both sides of the building, and I looked down at my right arm, praying that I had studied the program correctly and that I could do this.

I ran back to the elevator, turned around, and braced myself.

And then, at full speed, with Screwdriver scrambling out of the way, I ran straight for the windows. My impact shattered the glass, and as I went sailing out of the building, I twisted in mid-air and pressed my right index finger to the area of palm just below my right thumb, and a thin but very sturdy wire launched out of a minuscule hole in my wrist.

Three thin metal arms opened up from the end of the wire and latched onto the side of the building, and I was hanging from it. People clapped down below, and even though my expectations were to simply not fall to the ground, I allowed myself a smile at the victory.

I retracted the wire back into my sleeve and then started climbing up the building. I was slow at first, getting used to it, but my sneakers and gloves were made with good grips, and I said yet another mental thank you to Tatiana Castro as I went faster and faster.

When I reached the top and hauled myself over the edge, the remote man was waiting for me. Decked head to toe in leather and gear, he was grinning at me, like he was finally glad that I was able to make it to the party. Any doubts I'd had about him before vanished; he was definitely the leader of this whole operation.

And he was holding the tracker disc. "I knew you'd come and find me," he said, and he tossed it to me.

I didn't catch it and let it fall to the ground instead. I knew that it was possible that he wanted me to find him, but I didn't care.

"You're going to jail," I said, raising my fists.

He tilted his head. "Here I am, on top of a news agency, with about a dozen police cars below and a newbie superhero here to take me down."

"I'm not a newbie," I said. I was, but not anymore. "I know what I'm doing."

He spread his arms. "Then come and fight me."

Even though he was practically telling me to start the fight, he ran at me first, aiming his fist at my face. I ducked under his arm and flipped off a raised platform right onto him, toppling him over. I scrambled up quickly, suddenly wishing that I had a pair of handcuffs or something.

He stood up and turned to face me, spreading his arms again. "You know, there's nothing up here but me," he said, shaking his head. "No evidence. So come on, Red Soldier. I'm all you have. Come take me down."

I bit the inside of my cheek. My helmet told me that the the giant metal mass was, in fact, clinging to the side of the building just below the edge, and I had that as evidence, but there was no way I was letting him go again.

My helmet also told me that he was wearing a lot of gear, including but not limited to: a cuff, an improved, slimmer model that was hidden underneath his sleeve, a glove that probably had a lot of force and maybe even electricity backing it up, and...something else. There was something odd about him.

I charged at him this time, feigning left and then turning right to attempt to kick him, but he caught my foot.

And that was when I realized that I was in a lot of trouble.

And I wondered, as he swung me around so hard that I hit the roof and felt my teeth grind together, if Ms. Henderson knew that another one of her syringes must have been stolen, and that this man had the same powers as I did.

I struggled to get up, a dull throbbing in my head, and I looked at him, trying not to let my surprise show in my suddenly tense stance. My ankle still felt like it was being crushed by his hand, and I raised my fists again. He had superpowers, too. We were both decked out in Henderson Technologies gear. Evenly matched.

But where his cause was to induce chaos and sell dangerous tech to dangerous people, mine was to stop him, and I had people to protect, which meant I had more to lose.

More to fight for.

So I ran at him again, and we fought again, and I knocked his head to the side and he kicked me in the chest and I felt as if my ribs were going to crack. At one point, he had me in a headlock, and even though he wasn't choking me, I couldn't get out of his grip.

"Let's see who's under this mask, shall we?" he hissed in my ear before yanking off my helmet.

He turned me around, expecting to see a complete face, only to realize that I had on my smaller, eye-covering mask. Precautions, precautions: I had been wearing it underneath my helmet for this very situation. I smiled and bonked my head onto his, sending both of us staggering away from each other.

It probably hurt him as much as it hurt me, but I recovered faster and picked up my helmet, putting it back on my head. "Surrender now," I said.

He was rubbing his forehead, and he didn't look up.

And that was when the metal mass flew up from behind him. We might have been close to evenly matched, but a metal machine that didn't get hurt would prove to be an entirely different challenge. I ducked when it flew past me so that it wouldn't pick me up again, but I realized it had been upgraded to have what could only be claws, and they raked across my back. I didn't have to look to know that there were now four identical lines running diagonally across the leather.

Crap.

Before I could even get up, the man kicked me in the face.

Boy, did it hurt. I could feel blood dripping from my nose, but I wasn't about to take off my helmet.

I tried to get up and surprise him, but the metal thing came to his rescue and would have knocked me over had I not seen it and jumped over it. But when my feet were on the roof again, the man was there, grabbing my arm and flipping me over his shoulder.

And before I could even get up, he formed a fist with his mechanical, alien-looking glove and slammed it onto my throat.

And I realized that I was wrong when I said that his kick to my face hurt, because this was ten times worse.

Then he punched my helmet in the left lens. It broke, and now I could only see out of my right, and the computer was starting to act up, pixelating my vision and making everything warped.

I gritted my teeth together and pushed him away from me, sending him tumbling toward the edge. I stood up, and my right lens righted itself enough so I could see him clearly.

His smile was gone, and he wiped some blood away from the side of his head. Even though I had taken a worse beating, I could see that his strength, despite being from the same source, was not as high as mine. "You put up a better fight than I thought," he murmured.

I took that as his surrendering statement and advanced toward him, only to have the metal come flying at me.

It knocked me off the roof.

This time, I didn't go plummeting to the ground on purpose only to catch myself with the wire. This time, my fingers were aching from the punches, my throat was closing up, the entire left side of my vision was dark, and no one was clapping.

They were screaming.

But I never hit the ground, because someone caught me.

And even though the man was now somewhere in his fifties, even though he was wearing a simple, black mask that covered the entire upper half of his face, even though he wasn't wearing any kind of superhero suit, even though he had been retired for many years, I knew who he was.

Revere.

He flew me away from the Meyer Building, away from the crowd down below, and put me down on the roof of a building that was only a few stories tall. I stepped away from him cautiously, and he let out a deep breath and bent backward, his hands on his back.

"Haven't done that in a while," he said breathlessly.

I was stunned, because I had almost died and because I hadn't, and I hadn't died because of Revere. My attention was drawn to the sky, to the metal mass that was flying away, the remote man sitting on its back. I swallowed. "Thank you," I said hoarsely.

"I was going up there to help you," he said. "I was too late. I caught you instead. I'm sorry."

I shook my head vehemently. Revere, apologizing to me. "You saved me," I said, struggling to get the words through my aching throat. "Are you...coming out of retirement?"

He shook his head...and he took off his mask, a sign of trust that I couldn't believe he was willing to give to me. He had a friendly face that was somehow serious at the same time, and his green eyes were vibrant.

I swallowed again. "So why did you come?"

"Because I wanted to meet the new superhero," he said. "I wanted to know that the city was in good hands."

I looked down at my feet. "And?" I asked quietly.

"I think you're going to make a fine protector."

I looked up, but he was gone. For a man in his fifties, he could still fly really fast.

I took off my helmet and wiped away the blood from underneath my nose. I took a deep breath, but my throat wasn't having it, and I ended up having a coughing fit.

When I had evened my breathing, my phone rang. I took it out of my pocket to see a cracked screen and a completely unexpected caller: Ms. Henderson.

I inhaled sharply, and it almost sent me into another fit, but I suppressed the coughs and answered the call, only to listen to a frantic message.

"Come to Henderson Tech. Now."