“I can’t look,” the anchor’s cohost said as the camera moved into position. “I can’t!”
Jack knew just how she felt. He held his breath, waiting for the news to come.
“Oh no,” Jazen said once the SmartCam finally panned down to reveal the aftermath of the battle. Jack’s heart sank as the camera zoomed in on a dead body sprawled out on the street. The telltale black supersuit and Smart-Corp logo identified the body as a Peacemaker.
CHAPTER
13
Karateka Knights
The SmartNews anchorman continued his report as the SmartCam footage rolled on. “I’m afraid this looks like Cyberai, the bionic ninja Peacemaker who was based in Karateka,” he said solemnly. “This is terrible, just terrible.”
Jack couldn’t argue with that. He could see Cyberai was beaten up pretty bad. His supersuit was cut up and torn, and sparks were flying out of his hip and from one of his state-of-the-art robotic arms.
“I’m not sure, it’s hard to tell from this angle, but it looks like…” The news anchor paused. “Is he missing one of his cybernetic legs?”
Jazen turned to Jack. “Your Left-Behind was missing a leg,” he said.
“Looks like he found a new one,” Jack replied.
The anchor kept talking while Empire City police officers closed off the scene and pushed the SmartCams away. “One has to wonder,” the anchor’s polished voice began, “just how much of this increased Rüstov activity has to do with the infected child that Circleman Smart has been warning us about? And how much longer does the Inner Circle plan to ignore those warnings? It’s certainly a fair question at this point. Is this boy involved? Is this the work of young Jack Bla—”
Jazen shut off the screen, but it was too late. Jack heard all he needed to hear. He was running his hands through his hair with a worried look. “This isn’t good,” he told Jazen. “This isn’t just more bad press, Jazen, this is serious. Smart’s really going to start calling for my head now, and people are getting tired of waiting.”
“No one’s coming anywhere near your head,” Jazen said. “They’d have to come through me and Blue first.”
Before Jack could say anything more, a call came in on the apartment videophone. Jack looked around as a computerized voice announced the caller’s identity: “INCOMING CALL FROM… BLUE. INCOMING CALL FROM… BLUE.”
“Speak of the devil,” Jazen said. He answered the call, and a holographic image of Blue driving in his HoverCar appeared in the room.
“You guys watching the news?” Blue asked.
“We just shut it off,” Jazen replied.
“Just now?” Blue asked. “Then you didn’t see me take Cyberai’s body, I guess.”
“What?” Jack and Jazen exclaimed together. They leaned forward, looking at the holo-image of Blue driving in his car. The figure of someone or something in the passenger seat was just out of the frame.
“Blue, what did you do?” Jazen said. “Is that—”
“You heard me,” Blue said. “I’ve got Cyberai’s body. I’m taking it back to police headquarters. I need you to meet me there.”
“Wait a minute, slow down,” Jazen said. “What do you mean you’ve got Cyberai’s body? Isn’t that contaminating the crime scene?”
“Hey,” Blue said. “Do I tell you how to do your job? The right way to sneak somebody into the Imagine Nation, or how to—”
“Yes,” Jazen cut in. “Yes, actually you do! Now, what do you need me for?”
Blue’s holo-image swerved through traffic as he thought about how to explain himself. “This is the first real lead we’ve had on the escaped Left-Behind in days, Jazen. I’m not gonna let the Peacemakers pull rank on me and just take it away. I need you to come down here, plug into Cyberai’s systems, and tell me the last thing he saw. We don’t have a lotta time here. You gotta meet me at the station, and I mean now.”
Jazen grimaced. “Won’t the Peacemakers be coming for the body?”
“That’s why you gotta leave now,” Blue said. “Look, if we catch the Rüstov because of this, no one’s going to care how we did it.”
Jazen started nodding, and Jack answered for the both of them. “We’ll be there, Blue,” he said excitedly.
“Whoa,” Jazen replied, spinning around to look at Jack. “We’re not going anywhere. I can’t risk anything happening to you, Jack. You’re staying here.”
Jack glared at Jazen. “No way,” he said.
Jazen returned Jack’s determined gaze. “Jack, work with me here,” he said. “You know it’s not safe for you out there right now. You just said so yourself.”
“That’s why I need to go with you!” Jack argued. “That way, people can see I helped recapture the Left-Behind.”
“Are you kidding?” Jazen said. “I don’t want you going anywhere near any Left-Behinds!”
“I have powers,” Jack protested. “I’ll be fine.”
“You’re just learning your powers.”
“That’s not fair,” Jack said.
“Hey!” Blue chimed in. “I’m a cop in a city where corporate mercs outrank me. That’s unfair! C’mon, Jack, we all gotta deal with stuff we don’t like.”
“Not you,” Jack said. “You’re breaking the rules right now.”
Blue looked flustered for a second. “I’m bending the rules,” he said.
“Like Jazen bent the rules to bring me here in the first place?” Jack asked.
Jazen let out an exasperated sigh. “Jack, sometimes you have to bend the rules,” he said. “I’m the first to admit that. But only at certain times, and this isn’t one of those times.”
“How do you know the difference?” Jack asked.
“You just know,” Jazen replied.
Jack shook his head. “Jazen, I can’t stay cooped up in this apartment another night!”
“I know this is tough to swallow, partner,” Blue said. “Jazen and I both know it’s hard on you. Especially since the Inner Circle lets that Skerren kid hunt the Rüstov with them, but it’s not the same thing with him. I mean, there are people out there who think you’re responsible for all this Rüstov business! We gotta be more careful when it comes to…” Blue looked up to see Jazen motioning to him to stop talking. “What? What’d I say?”
Jazen was just shaking his head in frustration. “Nothing. Forget it. I’ll see you in twenty minutes,” Jazen said, and ended the call. Blue’s image blinked out. “You big blue knucklehead,” Jazen muttered to himself. He looked back over to Jack, who was justifiably upset.
“Skerren gets to go hunting for the Left-Behind with the Inner Circle?” Jack asked. “And you knew about it?”
“We’ll talk about this later, Jack,” Jazen said, fishing around in his pockets for his HoverCar keys. “I promise, we’ll talk about it. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Skerren. But right now I have to go. You heard Blue; he needs my help. With any luck, we’ll sort this all out tonight. The best thing you can do is just stay here, and try to get some rest. Okay? Jack?”
Jack stared back at Jazen with hard eyes. “Whatever,” he said. Jack climbed onto his bed and lay down on top of the covers, facing the window. In the reflection he saw Jazen take a step toward him but stop halfway. Instead, he turned around with a sad look and left.
As soon as Jack heard the door click, he sprang out of bed. There was no way he could sleep knowing that Skerren was out there tracking down the Rüstov and he was stuck indoors. Despite the lateness of the hour, the only thing Jack was tired of was waiting for someone else to catch the Left-Behind without him. He was going to get his answers from that Left-Behind, one way or the other.
Jack quickly struck up a conversation with the Empire City VideoPhone network and asked for Allegra’s line in Galaxis. The VideoPhone network was a friendly program, happy to connect him and keep the line private and secure. Allegra was fast asleep when Jack called, and pretty surprised to hear from him so late at night. She was even more surprised when he asked h
er to meet him out somewhere that night. Allegra might not have agreed if she hadn’t been half asleep, but she told Jack she’d meet him halfway between Galaxis and Hightown, in SeasonStill Park. Two minutes later, Jack was riding the elevator down to the lobby.
Jack was feeling pretty good about himself, having managed to ditch the SmartCams for the first time on his way out of the apartment. They weren’t friendly contraptions that would do whatever Jack wanted, but he understood their video functions well enough to make them record and play back a loop of him watching TV for the next few hours. His studying was definitely paying off. Like Stendeval had said, knowledge was power. Jack got to the park ahead of Allegra and strolled in under no video surveillance whatsoever. He waited by the lagoon in Summershore Stretch, where the weather would be warmest, even in the middle of the night. A short while later, Allegra flew into the park on an open AirSkimmer, a vehicle that looked something like a flying metal raft. Jack called out to her, and she spotted him down on the boardwalk. She brought the AirSkimmer down and parked it in hover mode, tying it off on a nearby bench.
“Hey,” Allegra said, taking a seat.
“Hey,” Jack replied, joining her on the bench. “Thanks for coming. I knew I could count on you.”
“Really?” Allegra asked. “I guess that makes one of us,” she said, settling into a nook where two branches met above her. She looked around the park fretfully. “I wasn’t so sure about this.”
“Did you have trouble sneaking out?” Jack asked.
Allegra shook her head. “I live at the Valorian garrison— I didn’t have to sneak out. They love that I’m not afraid to go to the park at two a.m., with an escaped Left-Behind running around the city.”
“Right,” Jack said, noting the sarcasm in Allegra’s voice when she said the “not afraid” part. He remembered the Valorian credo she had recited back on Wrekzaw Isle, that a true daughter of Valor knows no fear. “I’m sorry to bring you into this with the Left-Behind still out there,” he said. “But the truth is, I wouldn’t have called if they’d already caught it.”
“What’s going on, Jack? You said you needed help. What is this? What are we doing here?”
Jack took a deep breath. He was about to ask for a lot more than what Allegra had had in mind when she had gotten out of bed. He might as well just spit it out. “I need you to help me go after the Rüstov Left-Behind,” he said. “The one from Wrekzaw Isle. The one that got away.”
Allegra’s face rippled, but she kept herself together. “Why…why would you want to do that?”
“It’s complicated,” Jack replied. “The short version is, I think it knows me. Or at least knows something about me. I have to find out what that is. It’s the only way to end all this. We can bring it in together. We did it once already, didn’t we?”
“No, we only sort of did,” Allegra said. “Skerren did most of the fighting, and the Left-Behind just got confused about what to do with you. I mean, really, Jack—” Allegra exhaled heavily, not at all comfortable with the idea of joining this caper. “I dealt with this thing on Wrekzaw Isle once already. That was enough for me.”
Jack put up a finger. “Hold that thought,” he said. Jack reached into his pocket and took out the distress beacon Allegra had lost back on Wrekzaw Isle. He held it out by its chain. “I think this belongs to you.”
Allegra stared at the beacon, caught completely by surprise.
“You had it?”
Jack nodded. “It kind of got stuck on my neck when I fell through you,” he explained with a shrug. “I think that ended up being a good thing, though, right?” Allegra didn’t answer. She was transfixed by the beacon as she took it from Jack’s hands. “You need to do this, Allegra,” he told her.
Allegra tensed up and stared at Jack with apprehensive eyes. “You’re not going to say anything about this to Prime, are you?” she asked.
Jack scrunched up his eyebrows. “No, I’m giving this back to you,” he explained. “I would have given it back even sooner, but I didn’t want anyone to see.”
Allegra relaxed her posture. “Oh. Okay. Sorry, it’s just… the only reason I didn’t hit this button on Wrekzaw Isle was because I couldn’t find it. You know that. That’s the only reason I passed that test,” she added, shaking her head. “When Prime told me he was proud of me, it was probably the greatest feeling I’ve had since I got here. I don’t want him to find out that I’m still afraid.”
“Come with me tonight,” Jack said. “Help me catch the Rüstov and there won’t be anything for Prime to find out. You’re brave enough. You are. You came here tonight, didn’t you?”
“I don’t know…”
“You can do it,” Jack said. “You need to do this for yourself. Forget about Prime for a minute. Tonight you can prove to yourself that you’re not afraid. And I can finally find out who I am.”
“Why does that matter so much?” Allegra asked. “Is that worth maybe getting killed for?”
“It matters,” Jack said. “You don’t understand.” He paused, thinking back a moment to his time at St. Barnaby’s. “I’ve wanted to know that stuff my whole life. You don’t know what that’s like. You were lucky. Well, not really lucky… that’s obviously not the right word, but at least you know who you are. You know what happened to your family and how you ended up here. I want the same thing. I know my family is probably gone. I do know that. I just want to know for sure, and I think this Rüstov can help me find out.”
Allegra groaned. Jack could see she didn’t want to do this. “I can understand where you’re coming from. And, of course, I owe you for what you did on Wrekzaw Isle, and for keeping your mouth shut about it, but…” Allegra paused a moment, then let out a resigned groan. “Promise me I won’t regret this,” she said.
“You’re in?” Jack asked eagerly.
“Where would we look first?” Allegra asked. “If I were in, that is.”
“If you were in?” Jack smiled. “I’d start in Karateka.”
Jack and Allegra flew into downtown Karateka on Allegra’s AirSkimmer, which was just big enough to hold the two of them and maybe one more, Jack hoped, if they did manage to catch the Left-Behind. Allegra wanted to know just how they were supposed to find this Left-Behind when every hero in Empire City couldn’t. Jack replied that Skerren wasn’t the only one who spent all his free time training. “I talk to machines, remember?” he said. “I can use my powers to track it.”
On the way in, Jack told Allegra everything he knew about Cyberai’s untimely demise. As he spoke, Allegra flew past floating NewsNets and she saw Cyberai’s grisly fate for herself. The sight of it gave them both the chills, but they pressed on.
“Do you think you can control it this time?” Allegra asked, brimming with nervous energy. “The Left-Behind, I mean?”
“I don’t think I’ll have to,” Jack said. “I can trick it. The Left-Behind thinks I’m royalty. It thinks I’m some upper-class Rüstov with a fresh host. We can use that. Turn left here.”
Jack’s first trip into Karateka made him think of the incredibly busy and overwhelming megacities found in most science fiction movies. Shiny new HoverCars and LaserBikes fired down MagLev highways at breakneck speed. AirSpeeders, Skimmers, and Skiffs raced around the borough’s lively skyline. It was a lot like Machina and Galaxis in that regard. However, instead of taking on a clean robotic style or exotic alien design, Karateka’s towers were fitted with a retro-Asian look.
All the buildings in Karateka were designed to mimic the castles and temples known to traditional Japanese and Chinese architecture. On every building multiple tiers of curving roofs brandished sharp peaks and endpoints at multiple levels. Rectangular shapes of steel and glass were stacked together like boxes covered with ornate ridge-topped lids. For every sleek vertical skyscraper there was another jagged rectangular one, each styled after the temples of old.
A gentle rain fell and the wet streets became mirrors that reflected the multicolored lights of a million bright advertise
ments. Dynamic Asian letters were illuminated everywhere with giant characters written from top to bottom on long, vertical flashing signs, some of them spanning entire buildings. It was like flying through a giant jukebox.
Allegra followed Jack’s directions around the city and swerved in between mammoth skyscrapers and flashing lights on the AirSkimmer. They weren’t far from where Cyberai’s body had been found. With any luck, the Left-Behind wouldn’t be too far off.
“That way,” Jack said, pointing, and Allegra turned the AirSkimmer to follow his fingers. Jack’s connection to the Rüstov and his ability to talk to machines made him the perfect tracker. At first, the flashing signs showed him the way. They told Jack what they had seen of the Rüstov, and he repeated it for Allegra. As they picked up the trail, Jack began to feel the pull of the Rüstov, and he started directing things on his own.
Allegra slowed down as they passed a cluster of Smart-Corp high-rises. “The Left-Behind came through here,” Jack said. “I bet the Rüstov’s fight with Cyberai started somewhere nearby.” Sure enough, as they passed between the buildings, they saw battle debris on windowsills and ledges, as well as laser-sword burns and fist-size impressions on building exteriors.
Jack watched the SmartCorp signs cycle between different languages, including English and some Asian languages he didn’t recognize. SmartCorp really was everywhere. Something about the company’s presence in every single borough felt wrong to Jack. Here in Karateka, Smart had ninja Peacemakers and entire blocks of office space and real estate…. Jack wondered aloud if there was any place in Empire City that Smart’s fingers didn’t touch.
“Just Cognito,” Allegra answered. “Prime says Cognito will always belong to Stendeval.”
Jack thought about the supervillains and rival ninja clans he always saw Chi fighting against in his old ZenClan Warrior comic books. “I hope Chi has the same grip on Karateka,” he said as they followed the Left-Behind’s trail into a dark corner of the borough. “This place is starting to look a little sketchy.” As Jack and Allegra moved away from the brightly lit business district, the lights began to fade and the shadows began to loom large.
The Accidental Hero Page 20
