Mark checked an incoming text on his phone. “I can’t get over how Per kept this huge secret from us for, like, ever.”
“If there’s one person who could, it’s Per.” Joan raised her eyebrows at Perry. “I can’t get over how his secret best friend is a former Superhero.”
“She’s far removed from that life,” Perry said.
“But you’re not. She really just looked the other way?”
“We have an unspoken rule not to talk about it.” He hesitated for a moment. “Obviously I didn’t tell you while we were active in the life. Now you might understand, being on the other side.”
“Not really,” Joan said.
“She wants a normal life, too.”
Joan and Mark shook their heads at each other. “Still so weird,” Mark said.
Another text popped up on his phone—a cartoon GIF of thin noodles dangling from chopsticks. Hmm. Mark’s favorite comfort food was beef lo mein.
“Is Zee offering to buy you dinner?” Joan asked.
He shoved his phone out of her sightline. “It’s nothing.”
To Perry, she said, “I guess we can’t give you guff, considering Mark’s flirting with an actual?—”
“Shut up, you’re the worst.”
“—currently active Super.”
“What if it’s Kade?” Mark said.
“It’s not Kade.”
“It could be. He texts me about food. He loves to eat.”
Perry planted a hand on his hip. “Texting withtwoSupers? That’s double my record.”
Joan cackled at his rare participation in teasing. She rubbed at the itchy scab under her eye. Then her phone dinged with a SuperWatch emergency alert.
A live video notification. Another one. Several more. They flooded her lock screen.
QUAKE!
Holy @*$&% Big Quake
Big quake and villains!!!
“Shit.” She clicked on one, waving Mark and Perry over.
The live feed showed the trio of new Villains behind a person completely covered in an updated version of Big Quake’s brown-and-black getup. His head was obscured by a full mask.
“…came back to Vector City to finish what I started,” he was saying. “But then I realized there’s a lot more I can do.”
He turned and flexed his hands toward the grass at the foot of a hill. The earth rumbled and shook and broke apart in large pieces. Whoever was videoing raised their phone to show the tall cell tower at the top.
People screamed and ran in the opposite direction. The hill gyrated, making the tall metal structure sway precariously.
Quake peered over one shoulder to say, “Let’s see how you do without your precious internet.”
He swung his arms and tensed his hands. A terrible groaning metallic sound melded with the crumbling of the concrete base. Mark and Perry swore, and?—
