Page 9 of Secret Spark

Perry quirked an eyebrow. “Trick wants us to?—”

“—stop calling him Melvin,” said Joan.

“Well, yes, but?—”

“Put a curse on his parents for naming him Melvin,” Mark said.

Perry sent them a weary glare. “Will you take this seriously for once?”

“Have we ever taken anything seriously?” Mark said.

“This time it’s different. Trick’s doing a lot of bad stuff, and he wants us to join him. Establish dominance over Vector City. Use scare tactics to make people submit. If we don’t want to be associated with him?—”

“We don’t,” Joan and Mark chorused.

“Then we have to tell him no. Let people know we’re not trying to take over the world or hurt anyone.”

Joan scratched her nose. “The three of us haven’t been connected to some of the worst things he’s done. Even the Supers can attest to our refusal to harm people. Not that they would.”

“We have principles,” Mark said. “No knocking off small businesses, only taking from heavily insured corporations…”

“I agree with you, but it’s not going to be easy with Mel’s whole…” Perry gestured to his head. “If we go against what he wants, he’ll manipulate the norms around us until we give in. That only creates more chaos.”

Thank god Trick’s mind control didn’t work on Supers. The altered DNA they were born with that gave them powers also gave them immunity from him. It drove him nuts. As long as there were people he couldn’t control, he’d never be able to completely take over.

Some Supervillains had grand visions of world domination, while others were more or less petty crooks. Crooks who could burn through bank vaults with a flick of the wrist, but still… A girl had to do what a girl had to do to survive.

“Eh, don’t worry about Mel,” Joan said. “He’s still got his henchmen.”

“Hench-people.” Marktsked at her. “Don’t disrespect Ethel like that.”

“Sorry. His hench-persons Volt and Hide.”

“Thank you.”

“Boring Ethel and stinky Irving,” Joan muttered, to which her brother laughed.

Perry jotted a note on his agenda. “Which one of you wants to tell him?”

“You’re the Man, Per,” Mark said. “You can speak for us.”

“Does that make you my hench-people?”

“No, that makes you our democratically elected representative.”

“I’ll do it,” Joan said. She was not afraid of Melvin.

“Do it soon,” Perry said, and scribbled another note. “He’ll keep bugging me otherwise.”

She sipped her disappointingly bland home-brewed iced coffee. According to the clock on the wall, it was 3:15. Sadie might be at work. She could hook Joan up with something sweet.

“Anything else?” she asked. “I’d like to stop by Vector City Coffee to assess the damage.”

“That’s not why you’re going.” Mark waggled his eyebrows. “A cute woman works there.”

Perry gave Joan the stern look she’d been on the receiving end of more times than she could count. “You can’t go near there. We were seen.”

“It’s not like I’m gonna swing by in my Spark suit,” she pointed out.

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