Not Your Sidekick Read Online Free PDF

twenty-first century movies: people seemed to have free reign to be creative. Still, rules against fictional media about superheroes makes sense; the lives of the actual heroes provide enough interest. “I bet Captain Orion would be the one holding the swooning—”
    â€œOoh, Starscream?” Emma says with interest. “I heard they were on again.”
    Jess shakes her head. “Nope, broke up, according to yesterday’s Gazette. ” She never reads the entire newsholo, but Orion’s love life always makes headlines.
    They gossip about Captain Orion’s romantic life and then get into a silly discussion about the most attractive heroes in the League. The movie is playing but they aren’t paying much attention. Jess lost track of the plot a few minutes in. She’s enjoying her time with her friends as they argue about who is hotter: Starscream or Copycat.
    Emma and Bells are waving their DEDs at each other, flicking through their favorite holos. Bells’ projection of the official League holo of Copycat and Emma’s holo of Starscream keep bumping into each other, causing both holos to flicker.
    â€œIt has to be Copycat,” Bells says. “She’s got those stunning green eyes, you know?”
    â€œYeah, but Starscream’s jaw!” Emma says. “No, this holo isn’t a great one, no, I need a better—Jess! Help!”
    Jess laughs, throwing up her hands. “I refuse to get in the middle of this. I’m a Captain Orion gal myself, but I will bring my desktop down so you can find all the pictures you want.”
    Beeping as it wheels back and forth, Chả is still trying to clean the holoscreen. Shaking her head, Jess picks up the robot. She carries it up to the main floor and sets it down in the living room. “You can clean here,” Jess says. “I’ll do the holoscreen later.”
    Chả cheeps in affirmation and starts vacuuming. It promptly gets stuck under the coffee table, meeping until Jess picks it up and turns it around. Chả chirps and heads down its new, clear path. Jess trudges upstairs, lingering outside Brendan’s room. She hears a few beeping noises, but that’s normal.
    She grabs her desktop projector and goes downstairs, where Emma grabs it and syncs her own DED to it, to look up photos of Starscream. She gets distracted checking her notifications and then she gasps.
    â€œOh my God, there’s a new superhero over in Devonport.”
    Jess looks over her shoulder at the projection. Emma waves at the air, closing all her open windows: various messages, homework documents, and photos of Starscream and Lilliputian. She enlarges the newsfeed holo from the official Heroes’ League of Heroes. “Oh, wow! He’s our age. The bio says sixteen.”
    Emma pokes Bells in the shoulder, but he just shrugs and gets up to manually turn up the television’s volume.
    Emma faces the holo toward them, grinning as she waves her hand to play a featured clip from a news segment.
    â€œAnd what do we call you?” On the holo, Wilton Lysander, the most popular newscaster of all the latest superhero news, stands in downtown Devonport in front of its iconic fountain. With a broad smile, he holds his microphone out to the brightly clad hero next to him.
    â€œI’m Chameleon!” Like most meta-humans in the public eye, Chameleon wears a mask; it matches his brightly colored rainbow-hued bodysuit and sits high on his face. A shock of dark hair spills over the forehead. The tight outfit shows off his broad shoulders and tapered waist, and Emma sighs and reaches out to trace the air around the projection.
    Chameleon stands with a hand on his hip and points to the reporter. Then, in the blink of an eye, Chameleon turns into a duplicate copy of Lysander, from his coiffed blonde hair to his navy suit, complete with the matching pocket square.
    â€œAmazing!” Lysander gasps. He turns to the camera and