Sakkara

By the time they got to the last stop, Danny was just about ready to throttle his little brother.

“Right,” Danny said, taking Niall aside. “There’s lot of people around, so do not talk about Colin or Renata, OK?”

Niall nodded. “OK. But, right, what if…”

Danny raised his eyes. “Niall, just keep quiet, OK? And stick close.”

They made their way through the market square. As Christmas was approaching, most of the shops were still open, and the square was filled with people either laden with packed bags or carrying absolutely nothing and looking like they were on the verge of panic.

Danny shuddered as a freezing wind whipped through the square. He glanced down at the zipper on his coat. Should have worn the other jacket. Buttons are a lot easier to manage with one hand. “Niall? Help me out here, OK?”

As Niall zipped up the coat, Danny tried to ignore the looks of the people passing by. He heard a muttered comment, “That poor boy!”

I didn’t know how lucky I was when I had two arms. I tied my shoelaces every single day and never even thought about it. I could open a bag of crisps without having to use my teeth. Now it’s all I can do to get dressed in the mornings.

Danny’s mother had bought him a new pair of trainers with Velcro straps. That should have made things easier, but it only made him more aware of what he had lost.

As they passed Morton’s Electrical Goods, Niall stopped and stared. The window was packed with dozens of television sets, all showing the same film: Kid Titan and Diamond rescuing the shoppers from the fire.

“Come on,” Danny said. “We don’t have time to hang around.”

They were just about to turn away when the screens changed to show the photo of Kid Titan without his mask. Oh God, Danny thought. It’s not going to be easy for him. But at least the photo’s not great quality, so I suppose things could be worse.

And then a caption appeared below the photo: “Colin Wagner, 13, AKA Kid Titan.”

Danny’s blood froze. “No…” he whispered.

Niall turned to him. “What does AKA mean?”

“What?” Danny asked numbly.

“AKA Kid Titan, it says.”

“It stands for Also Known As.”

Around them, people had stopped. Someone in the crowd said, “Colin Wagner…Doesn’t he go to school with our Philip? His mother’s one of the teachers there, right?”

Danny whispered to Niall, “Let’s just go. Quietly, OK?”

They turned away, stepping carefully through the growing crowd. Niall kept glancing back towards the store.

“Come on!” Danny said. “Niall!”

His brother had stopped walking and was staring openmouthed at the largest wide-screen television.

The screen now showed a decade-old photograph of Titan and Quantum. The caption beneath read, “Titan, AKA Warren Wagner. Quantum, AKA Paul Joseph Cooper.”

For the first time in his life, Danny swore in front of his little brother. He grabbed Niall’s arm and tried to pull him away.

At that moment the screen changed once again, and showed the same captions over much more recent photos of Warren and Façade.

“Danny! Look at that! It’s Dad!”

Danny quickly glanced about: a lot of people had heard Niall and turned in their direction.

Niall kept talking: “It’s Dad and Mr Wagner! Danny, it’s saying that they used to be—”

Pushing Niall ahead of him, Danny said, “Just shut up and run!” How did this happen? How could someone have found out so quickly?

A man stopped to block their path. It was Mr Leopold, who lived in a neighbouring flat. “Danny and Niall! Did you see that? About your dad? It’s not true, is it?”

“No,” Danny said. “Of course not!” He tried to dodge past his neighbour. “We’ve got to go…”

“Is that why your mother threw him out? She found out about his past?”

Danny looked around. More and more people were stopping to stare at them. They knew his father was the manager of the local supermarket, and everyone would have heard about how PJ Cooper’s son had lost his right arm in an accident.

“Your friend Colin,” Mr Leopold was saying, “he’s Kid Titan, so then that cousin of his must be Diamond. What’s her name again?”

Niall stepped closer to Danny as the crowd advanced.

“It’s all just some stupid hoax,” Danny said, thinking quickly. “There’s a guy who works in the TV station who used to go to school with our dad. They’re always playing pranks on each other.”

Someone said, “You expect us to believe that?”

If I had my powers, Danny thought, I’d just pick Niall up and run away from this lot faster than they could see.

A woman Danny didn’t recognise pushed her way through the crowd. “Listen…I’m having some trouble with gangs of kids in the area, always hanging around. Maybe your dad could do something about it?”

“I don’t like this,” Niall said in a low voice. “I want to go home!”

Me too, Danny thought. Aloud, he said, “It’ll be OK, Niall. Just stick close to me.”

Then an elderly man approached. “Quantum saved my life, about fifteen years ago! Pulled me out of the way of a speeding truck. I never got a chance to thank him!” He stretched out his right hand, offering it to Danny to shake, then instantly pulled it back when he saw that Danny didn’t have a right hand of his own. “Oh. Sorry.”

“Please,” Danny said. “Let us go! It’s all a mistake! My father is not Quantum!”

A man asked, “You’re Quantum’s kids? For real?”

“No, we’re not!”

“Ten years since the superheroes all disappeared,” the man said. “Ten years! We all thought they were dead, but now…” The man’s face took on a snarl. “I know PJ Cooper! I used to work for him in the supermarket! Four years back my sister was knocked down by a couple of drugged-up joyriders. She’s going to be in a wheelchair for the rest of her life! If Quantum had been around, he never would have let things get that bad.”

The man next to him yelled, “Where the hell were your dad and his mates when my estate was being terrorised by junkies? Did they just decide that normal people weren’t worth saving any more?”

“Of course not!” Danny said. “I’m telling you, this is all a mistake!”

“That’s what happened, isn’t it?” a young woman asked. “They gave up on us. They think they’re better than we are!”