Isolation

by Kevin Hardman

“We spend little enough time together as it is,” my father replied. “If a meal here and there is all I can get, I’d like to make it last.”

  “You can get more than a meal,” I assured him, “especially with everyone else off-planet. I only mentioned teleporting in relation to using as much time as possible to find Mouse.”

  “The mission’s important, but you can’t put everything else on hold because of it – especially necessities, like eating.”

  “Well, I eat fast, as you just saw.”

  “Okay, I get it,” Alpha Prime asserted. “You’re ready to get back on task.”

  “It’s Mouse,” I reminded him. “If the situation was reversed, he’d be pulling out all the stops to find me and figure out what was going on.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll find him.”

  “And that raises another issue: what happens when we actually locate him?”

  “We take him into custody, of course.”

  “And after that?”

  My father looked at me with a queer expression on his face. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you guys are insisting something’s wrong with him. What’s the plan after we actually get our hands on him? Do we just hold him and hope that whatever might be wrong simply wears off? Are we taking him to a hospital? What?”

  Alpha Prime appeared to mull on the question for a second, then said, “We’re still debating that issue.”

  I looked at him askance, not liking his plans for Mouse (or the lack thereof), but decided it wasn’t worth arguing about at the moment. The first order of business was finding my mentor; any other issues could be dealt with after that.

  Chapter 28

  After our discussion about Mouse, Alpha Prime and I engaged in mostly small talk for the remainder of the drive to Electra’s house. She was apparently chomping at the bit, because she came walking out the door the moment we pulled into her driveway. She quickly waved goodbye to her father (who had come to the door to see her off), before opening the rear passenger door and getting in behind me. I saw Vir glance in my direction, but I judiciously avoided eye contact by turning to look at Electra in the backseat.

  “You got enough room back there?” I asked as my father began to back out of the driveway.

  “Oh, yeah,” Electra effused as she settled in. “I could probably fit a dining room set back here. Maybe a couple of couches, too. An ottoman…”

  I laughed and reflected for a moment on how much I missed her. Missed being around her. Missed seeing her every day. Even though she had really irritated me earlier, I was actually happy she had joined us. Perhaps sensing my mood, Electra gave me a wink before I returned to facing forward (which I shrewdly timed so as to avoid any additional scrutiny from Vir).

  “So,” I droned, looking at my father, “where are we headed?”

  “Mouse’s shop,” he replied.

  Frowning in confusion, I glanced back at Electra, who merely shrugged in a don’t-ask-me fashion.

  “Mouse’s shop?” I echoed a few seconds later.

  Alpha Prime just looked at me and smiled.

  ***

  “So Mouse worked here?” I asked.

  “Sort of,” my father said.

  We were currently in what appeared to be a small electronics repair shop, located in what Mouse had once described as a Bohemian part of town. In addition to me, my father, and Electra, Solar Surge was also present. In fact, he had already been on the premises when we arrived and had opened the door for us.

  Taking stock of our surroundings, I noticed that the front of the store appeared to serve as a sort of showroom, and I saw a couple of appliances on display, including an old microwave with mechanical dial controls and an ancient picture-tube television. The shop was clean and tidy, but I didn’t get the impression that anyone came here often. If it were a house, I would have said it lacked a lived-in feel. I supposed I could say that, as a purported place of business, it lacked a “worked-in” feel – no coffee rings on the work counter, no trash in the wastebasket, and so on. Plainly speaking, the place was devoid of warmth.

  “Basically,” Alpha Prime continued, “this shop was just a front – a cover for Mouse’s superhero activities before he joined the League.”

  “You’re kidding,” muttered Electra.

  “Not at all,” my father said.

  “So,” I droned, “you’re saying Mouse was a humble shop repairman by day, and a bold vigilante by night.”

  “Something along those lines, but that’s a story for another day,” my father stated, then looked at Solar Surge. “Anything?”

  “Not that I could see,” Surge answered. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s been here.”

  Alpha Prime nodded, then turned in my direction.

  “Jim, you want to give the shop a once-over?” he inquired. “See if anything catches your eye?”

  Rather than reply directly, I shifted into super speed and zipped through the store. It turned out to be more sizeable than I had imagined, with a workspace in the back, an expansive basement, and living quarters above the shop.

  Dashing back to the showroom, I returned to normal speed and declared, “I’m going to second Surge’s report. There’s nothing to suggest that Mouse was here.”

  “That’s disappointing,” my father confessed. “All right, we’ll post a guard or something to keep an eye on the place in case he shows up. For now, though, let’s move on.”

  Chapter 29

  “Moving on” essentially meant spending the remainder of the day going to various places that Mouse – either presently or at some point in the past – used as a base of operations, safe house, or something in-between. This included a modest house in the suburbs, a stylish condo near downtown, and a large warehouse with a secret underground lab.

  Our pattern was typically the same at each location: I would dash around at super speed, seeing if anything struck me as being indicative of where we might be able to find Mouse. (Needless to say, I never saw a single clue that could help in the search for my mentor.) During transit between locations, we normally made at least one stop for me to get food.

  Going from place to place in the SUV was both a blessing and a curse. It was, naturally, far slower than teleportation or super speed. However, it gave me time not only with Alpha Prime, but also with Electra. Of course, having my father along was kind of like having a chaperone, but it was the most time I’d had with her since we broke up, so I was happy with the trade-off. That said, it wasn’t quite enough to pin down my mounting frustration as each site visit failed to help in our quest to find Mouse.

  Ultimately, the end of the day saw us at a local marina, poking around a spacious liveaboard that apparently belonged to my mentor. I had heard him mention his boat a couple of times, but hadn’t given it much thought beyond that. It wasn’t quite the yacht that I’d been on the day before, but it was still rather nice.

  I went through what was now my usual routine of checking out the place at super speed. Unsurprisingly, the boat offered no more assistance in locating Mouse than any of the other places we’d been.

  “Well,” Alpha Prime began after I reported back, “at this point I can’t say it’s surprising. However, we still have other places we can check out.”

  “Hold up,” I said, trying not to sound as crabby as I felt. “Can we just take a break for a second?”

  My father gave me a thoughtful look. “Something on your mind, son?”

  “Yeah,” I said with a nod. “All this running around that we’re doing is a colossal waste of time. If Mouse has gone rogue as you suggest or on the run, he’s not going to go to any of the places you guys know about. He’s simply too smart for that.”

  “But remember – he’s been exposed to something,” Electra reminded me. “It’s got him unbalanced, so there’s no telling what he’ll do.”

  “Even unbalanced, Mouse isn’t dumb enough to visit any place other people know about,” I countered. “Not if he knows we’re looking for him.” />
  “So what are you saying?” Alpha Prime inquired. “That this has just been some kind of snipe hunt?”

  “Snipe hunt, head fake – call it what you want,” I remarked. “I just know that instead of scouring all of his stomping grounds that you’re familiar with, we should have been looking for all of his hangouts that you know nothing about.”

  “Well, what do you suggest?” my father asked.

  “I don’t know,” I confessed. “I just know that conventional thinking isn’t going to cut it with Mouse. If he’s really gone off the reservation, we’re going to have to think outside the box just to get a handle on where he is. I mean, he’s not going to leave his calling card lying around.”

  “Hold that thought,” Alpha Prime said. At the same time, he tapped the communicator in his ear and, speaking to whoever was on the other end, tersely stated, “Go.”

  Electra and I waited silently as my father listened to the incoming message.

  “Mm-hmm,” he muttered. “Okay…yeah…got it. We’ll be there shortly.”

  Sensing his message had something to do with our current mission, I barely waited for him to turn the communicator off before blurting out, “What did they say?”

  “Mouse just left his calling card,” Alpha Prime answered.

  Frowning, Electra asked, “What do you mean?”

  “He just attacked HQ,” my father explained.

  Chapter 30

  Per my father’s instructions, I teleported the three of us to Alpha League HQ immediately. We popped up in the Combat Arena – a scopious chamber used for training exercises and practicing threat scenarios.

  Off to one side, I noticed a couple of League members, including Luna, looking somewhat the worse for wear. Not far from them, I noticed that the floor of the chamber was blackened and scorched, like some kind of explosive had gone off.

  Taking charge, Alpha Prime stepped forward and stated, “Okay, tell me what happened.”

  The statement wasn’t directed at anyone in particular, but Luna took the lead, saying, “Mouse showed up, that’s what happened. We were incorporating some new weaponry into the training arsenal when he kicked open the door and came striding in with something like a grenade launcher. Next thing you know, he was firing it at us.”

  “That’s crazy,” I insisted. “Why would he do that?”

  “Because – just like in his lab – whatever the Construct did has unhinged him somehow,” Luna declared. “You seem to have trouble accepting that.”

  “Did he say anything?” I asked, ignoring her disdainful commentary.

  Luna nodded. “Yeah – he said he would destroy us all. Does that count?”

  There was silence for a moment as Luna’s words (sans sarcastic remarks) sank in. Of course, I still had trouble with what I was hearing. That said, maybe the Construct had done something to Mouse – infected him in some way so that, like a person delirious with fever, he was acting in a manner that was inconsistent with his personality.

  “So what happened after he shot at you?” Electra asked.

  “You mean aside from me ending up in the blast radius of a grenade?” Luna quipped. “I suppose I was knocked off my feet.”

  “I believe she was asking what happened to Mouse,” my father explained.

  “He took off,” Luna said. “By the time I got back up and went after him, he was gone.”

  “There are cameras all through this part of the building,” I noted. “They film us during training exercises and show the video to us later so we can see what we did wrong.”

  “What’s your point?” Luna inquired.

  “I think Jim’s trying to suggest that the cameras might tell where Mouse went,” Alpha Prime chimed in.

  Luna was silent for a second, then declared, “We already thought of that. The cameras apparently shut down when Mouse came after us, so there’s no footage.”

  “Presumably that was Mouse’s doing,” Electra said.

  Luna nodded in agreement. “That was our thought as well.”

  “So why here?” I asked. “Out of all the places at HQ, why would he stage an attack here?”

  “I’m not sure anyone can answer that,” Electra replied. “If Mouse really is unstable, there may not be any logic behind what he does or why.”

  “No,” I shot back, shaking my head. “Even half-crazed, I can’t imagine Mouse taking action like this without a reason, no matter how far-fetched.”

  Luna gave me a harsh look. “Maybe you should–”

  Her words were cut off as the entire chamber shook momentarily with tremors, accompanied by a hollow booming sound. Almost immediately thereafter, klaxons began sounding in alarm, along with flashing lights.

  Despite the room shaking, everyone present managed to stay on their feet, but we all knew exactly what we’d experienced: an explosion.

  Chapter 31

  Alpha Prime tapped his communicator and shouted over the sound of the alarm, “Talk to me!”

  His face grew stern as he listened to whatever report he was receiving. On my part, I instinctively reflected on the explosion.

  The blast wave from an explosion travels faster than the accompanying sound wave. However, the tremors and sound of the explosion had practically been simultaneous. In addition, I noted that the building wasn’t falling down around us. Taking those facts together, I came to the immediate conclusion that the explosion was nearby, but hadn’t been large.

  “Mouse just attacked us!” my father yelled after a few seconds.

  “He’s back?” I exclaimed.

  “Yeah, back,” Alpha Prime confirmed in a wavering tone as the alarms suddenly cut off. Obviously a second assault so close to the first wasn’t anything he’d contemplated.

  “Where?” asked Luna.

  “The Vault,” Alpha Prime stated.

  However, the words were barely out of his mouth before Luna and the League members who’d been with her took off – apparently headed to the area in question. Electra and I didn’t move; instead, we simply looked to Alpha Prime for direction.

  As the name implied, the Vault was a secure area (one of several, in fact) on the premises of Alpha League Headquarters. It was used to store numerous items of value, but also housed a diverse collection of paraphernalia seized from supervillains over the years: doomsday devices, weapons of mass destruction, and so on. Bearing that in mind, the Vault was generally off-limits to members of the League’s teen affiliate. Thus, I had never been inside the place. That said, I had been outside it before.

  “Jim,” my father said, getting my attention.

  Knowing what he wanted without asking, I teleported us.

  The three of us popped up outside a massive blast door that was about ten-by-ten feet in size. In fact, the door formed the wall at the end of a short corridor that was about thirty feet long. There were normally a couple of guards on duty outside, but at present they weren’t at their post and the blast door – which was the entry to the Vault – was currently open.

  My father literally flew into action, leaving his feet and flying forward at what was probably just under Mach speed. I shifted into super speed in order to keep up with him and followed. (Electra, of course, didn’t have the ability to move faster than normal, but them’s the breaks.)

  We dashed inside, and I noted in passing that, just like an old-fashioned bank vault, the blast door appeared to be more than a foot thick and made of some sort of hardened steel. Once on the other side, however, I experienced a momentary sense of déjà vu: the inside of the Vault was almost a duplicate of the exterior, with a short hallway that terminated in a wall-sized blast door that was currently ajar. It took me a second to realize and understand that we were not in the Vault proper yet, and there were apparently two doors (at a minimum) that one had to get past in order to get there.

  While I was processing this information, my father had never stopped moving; I stayed right on his heels, noting in the back of my mind that it was a little weird to see him flying in
civvies. Past the second blast door, we found ourselves in an oversized room that was perhaps two thousand square feet in size.

  As before, Alpha Prime didn’t stop and neither did I, but I was able to take in the room as we moved through it. Basically, it was filled with what looked like display cases, each of which was geometrically spaced throughout the place. In all honesty, it gave the room a museum-quality feel, like there was some kind of exhibit on display.

  My father headed towards what appeared to be a narrow corridor in a side wall, and I followed him into it. After about ten feet, it opened up into a room that was even larger than the first, and upon entering it, Alpha Prime came to a halt. A moment later, I came to a stop next to him, and saw myself gazing upon a strange sight.

  Like the first room, this one was full of display cases. Looking past them, I saw Mouse standing near the back wall. He was sporting his Alpha League uniform, which was clothing I’d rarely seen him wear. (Most times, he dressed casually in his lab.)

  On the floor around Mouse were maybe half a dozen guards, all seemingly unconscious. Perhaps five feet behind him was Buzz, appearing to run at my mentor at top speed. In fact, even though I was at super speed myself, Buzz’s arms and legs were a blur, plainly indicating the mind-boggling amount of effort he was exuding. Truth be told, it was a lot like one of those cartoons, where a character’s legs start swiftly whirring around before they take off in a burst of speed. The only difference was that here, Buzz wasn’t going anywhere. He was literally running in place.

  On his part, Mouse completely ignored the speedster behind him. Instead, his attention seemed focused on a tall, rectangular section of wall that extended out into the room directly in front of him.

  I didn’t have time to observe anything else as movement from my father drew my attention. Looking in his direction, I saw him flying backwards – like someone had grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and yanked him off his feet. Behind him, near a side wall, I noticed a circular node of dark energy about eight feet in diameter, which seemed to be the area Alpha Prime was headed towards.