“Get in.”

That gravelly voice could only belong to one person: Gran. I peered into the car’s dim interior and spotted her sitting next to Principal Sicarius. The bench seat across from them was empty and inviting. After being shoved out into the city to fend for myself more than a week ago, I didn’t need to be asked twice to get in a car with probably the only two people in the city of whom I could ask advice.

I scrambled inside, pulling the door shut behind me. The car immediately lurched into motion, and the first hint of foreboding crossed my mind. This vehicle was all too similar to the one that had brought me into Toronto in the first place, although it had been Mr. Falcus and Ms. Ishida sitting across from me then, exactly where Principal Sicarius and Gran now sat.

“Perhaps you would be kind enough to explain what you were doing blowing a hole in the middle of an official RUBE bank last night,” Principal Sicarius said, polite as ever. He flashed his pearly-white teeth at me, like a shark that had just sighted its next meal. My excitement at seeing two familiar faces shrivelled as I realized what this really was. Not a friendly check-in, but an interrogation.

“What do you mean, the bank was in...” I trailed off as I realized I had been about to say that the plans for the bank were in my file. As in, the file that was still supposed to be locked up safely in the Principal’s office, not sitting on the floor of my grimy apartment at this very moment.

“I mean, the bank...well...it just seemed like a good target,” I finished lamely. I met his eyes as I lied, staring straight into those black holes. After all, he was the one who had taught me that a sure way to tell a liar was if they looked away from you while talking.

“Hmph.” That was from Gran, who was also staring at me, muscled arms crossed over her chest.

“You do know which organization paid for your thorough and very expensive schooling, do you not?” Principal Sicarius asked mildly.

Now I did look away. There was a small crack in the black leather seat, and this I dug my thumbnail into, wishing I could fit my whole body inside and hide from this interrogation. After just a week of freedom from the strictures of the Academy, this sudden dressing-down was more than I could bear. The transformation from confident supervillain to naughty schoolchild was sudden and absolute.

“The Rubes did,” I muttered to the seat cushion.

“What was that?”

“RUBE paid for it,” I said, jabbing my thumbnail hard into the leather. The crack opened up another centimetre and I hurriedly clasped my hands together in my lap, not wanting to be caught defacing Principal Sicarius’ car, no matter how negligibly.

“That’s right. And do you know why the prestigious Researchers United for a Better Earth paid for the education of a lowly supervillain such as yourself?”

Of course I knew. We learned that our very first day in the Academy, and had to repeat it every morning until the day we left.

Principal Sicarius didn’t even give me time to answer his question before launching into the all-too-familiar explanation.

“They did this because they know that evil must be present in the world, and they would rather control it to a certain extent than allow it to roam freely. All supervillains around the world, all the major ones at least, pledge their allegiance to RUBE and abide by certain rules that limit the risk to innocent bystanders. In return, they receive support in their endeavours, and a generous retirement package. It is a system that works well for all involved.”

He paused, and fixed me with a purposeful stare. “They did not train you to be a supervillain so that you would turn around and blow up one of their own banks.”

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My hands were clasped together so tightly my knuckles were turning white. I stared at them, remembering those pale, terrified faces peering down at me as I robbed the vault of the largest and most prestigious bank in the city. RUBE was a vast, global, and incredibly wealthy organization. They could afford to lose three hundred thousand dollars for the sake of my reputation as a supervillain.

More to the point, who were they to say what I could and couldn’t do? I was the one with superpowers after all. I was the one who had managed to run circles the great Fireball, voted World’s Best Superhero three years running.

So the Rubes had paid for my education. So what? Did that mean I had to be indentured to them for the rest of my life? Back at the Academy that had just been a fact of life, but out here in the real world all those old boundaries crumbled away. I was a supervillain. I would not let anyone order me around.

Anger bubbled up inside of me, flowing out to fill my entire body with its fire. I could tie up Principal Sicarius and Gran with their own clothes; I could rip the entire car apart just with the power of my mind, if I wanted to. And I wanted to.

I looked up at Principal Sicarius, eyes blazing.

“And where exactly is this ‘support’ that we’re promised?” I demanded. “When I first got here I was thrown out of a car with nothing except for what I had brought with me from the Academy. No help finding an apartment or setting up a lair, no cash to help ease my transition from student to supervillain. Just ‘Bam! Here’s Toronto, see you in a month.’”

Principal Sicarius’ calm smile wavered, and he locked eyes with Gran for a split second. It was such a brief crack in his exterior that I might have thought I imagined it, if Gran had not muttered “idiots” under her breath.

“Of course, this is a trial period,” Principal Sicarius said smoothly, drawing my attention back to him. His impassive mask was back in place. “One can hardly expect RUBE to provide you with support until you prove yourself worthy.”

“Worthy? Who the hell decides whether I’m worthy or not? I’m a supervillain – I should be the one making the decisions!” I could barely keep my voice level. All of the molecules making up the body of the car were vibrating, sensing my anger. They wanted to twist, to tear, to rend my enemies limb from limb....or maybe that was just me, projecting my own emotions onto them. Either way, I made no effort to calm down either the metal atoms, or myself.

“‘I want to make people listen to me.’”

“What did you just say?” I whipped my head around to glare at Gran, whom I had entirely forgotten, which was a testament to my anger. Forgetting about an ex-supervillain is one sure way to meet an untimely death.

“I want to make people listen to me,” Gran repeated, smiling wolfishly at me. “Don’t you remember those words? That’s what you said to the RUBE recruiters when they came to your school. You were the brightest little grade 5 student they interviewed that day, but it was that response that convinced them you should be offered admission at the Academy.”

The metal body of the car contracted slightly, drawn in by my anger. I breathed out slowly and it relaxed into its original position with a faint creaking sound. Principal Sicarius and Gran appeared not to have noticed.

“So are people listening to you now?” Gran asked.

“Yes,” I said, staring down at my clenched hands. “But not the Rubes, or –”

“And who taught you how to make people listen?” Gran cut me off.

“Everyone at the Academy.”

“And who paid for you to go to the Academy?”

“The Rubes did, but –”

“Exactly.” Gran laid a comforting hand over one of my clenched fists. I almost jerked away from her hand, certain that she had some trick up her sleeve. Gran was many things, but comforting was not one of them. Her fingers curled around mine, and there was the faintest crinkle as she slipped a scrap of paper into my fist. I stayed perfectly still as she sat back in her seat.

The car rolled to a stop, and I glanced out the window to find that we had arrived on the same street they had picked me up from, just outside Bea’s shop.

“I hope you will keep this friendly discussion in mind while planning your future crimes,” Principal Sicarius said pleasantly. “I wouldn’t want to have an unfriendly discussion.”

“No, we wouldn’t want that,” I said. I opened the car door with one hand, the other still clenched tightly around Gran’s note. Before I could make my escape, Gran’s bony fingers dug into my shoulder, holding me firmly in place.

“Just so you know, there’s a big RUBE conference going on downtown two days from now,” she said. “So try to keep any unfortunate accidents away from there.”

I turned to look at her face, which was utterly impassive. She released her grip, and I quickly slid out of the car, slamming the door shut. The molecules cried out to me, and I released them from my mental grip as the car drove away.

I watched until it was around a corner out of sight, then uncurled my fingers and plucked the scrap of paper from where it was glued to my sweaty palm. There were just two sentences, written in a scrawling hand.

Don’t give in. Make them fear you.