by Charlie Wood
“How do you plan on getting out of here with all this stuff?”
Orion walked toward the exit of the room. “You know what doesn’t mix well with a lockdown?” The old man reached forward and pulled down on a fire alarm. All throughout the hallway, the alarm began to blare loudly, and the red emergency light near the ceiling flashed quicker and brighter. Another announcement came over the skyscraper intercom.
“Please evacuate the building. Repeat: please evacuate the building.”
“Come on,” Orion said over the noise of the wailing alarm, as he grabbed his box full of hard drives and documents. “They’re gonna have a hard time keeping everyone inside with the fire alarm going off. Let’s go.”
Strike grabbed his own box of intel and headed for the door. “I hope ‘Bolt and Keplar got more done than we did.”
In the basement, Scatterbolt sat at the screen of the computer mainframe, frantically trying to hack into it as the red lights of the fire alarm flashed in the ceiling and the announcement repeated itself.
“Please evacuate the building. Repeat: please evacuate the building.”
“Come on, kid!” Keplar said, standing near the door with his plasma cannon loaded and ready. “We gotta hurry this up! You know what these flashing lights mean!”
“I’m trying, I’m trying!” Scatterbolt said, typing on the keyboard. “The security on this computer is insane, and now it keeps trying to shut itself down! But I know I’m on the right track, I just need a couple more seconds!”
“Well, those are seconds I don’t think we have!”
Keplar turned to the door. It was still closed, but through the opening at the bottom, he could see the shadows of people’s feet in the hallway.
“Krandor,” the dog said. “Someone’s out there.”
In the hallway outside the computer mainframe, Rigel and Nova arrived with over a dozen armed security guards.
“Is everyone leaving the building?” Rigel asked the head security guard. “Why was the fire alarm pulled?”
“We don’t know yet, sir, but people are leaving in droves. They are ignoring the lockdown and beginning to panic. We don’t know who pulled the alarm, we just know it was on the 105th floor. Someone is heading up there now.”
“And what about the computers and electronics in the building? Are they all shut down?”
“Yes, sir. All computers in the building have been remotely shut down. Except one.”
“What do you mean, except one?” Nova asked.
“The mainframe computer is overriding our commands to shut down. Which should be impossible, but it’s as if someone is keeping the computer running, even though we are telling it to turn off.”
“Where is this computer?” Rigel asked.
“Here, sir. Right behind this door.”
“Well, then open the damn door!” Rigel bellowed. “Clearly someone is behind it who shouldn’t be!”
“We can’t, sir. The door has also been compromised. It’s been locked from the inside, and will not listen to our commands to be opened.”
“Then break the damn thing down! Do I have to do everything around here?”
“We—we can’t, sir. Doors like this for the mainframe were made specifically so brute force wouldn’t open them. It was done for our security against superpowers, but now—”
“Now our own security is working against us.” Rigel shook his head. “How do you plan on getting through this damn door?”
The guard held up a silver briefcase. “With these, sir.”
“What is it? What’s inside?”
“A series of cybernetic creatures. We call them ‘The Bugs.’ They will attack and kill any organic beings they sense inside the room.”
Rigel stared at the briefcase. “Send them in.”
Behind the locked door, Scatterbolt sat at the screen of the computer mainframe. The monitor was filled with black and green numbers, repeating themselves over and over.
“I’m almost in, I’m almost in!”
“Well, that’s good news,” Keplar said, “because people are out there and I’m starting to think—”
The dog stopped. He saw something crawling underneath the doorway. It was coming into the room from the hallway outside.
“What the hell...?”
The dog shined the light from his plasma cannon toward the door. He immediately saw what had crawled in from outside: it was a mechanical beetle, as tall as a house cat and as wide as a pizza box. It had an armored body, no eyes, thousands of legs, and two protruding, scissor-like teeth. Hissing and ravenous for flesh, it opened its mouth wide and skittered toward Keplar. The dog had to shoot it three times before it finally exploded into yellow goo.
“What the heck was that?” Scatterbolt said, spinning toward the green plasma explosions behind him.
“I don’t know, but I think—”
Keplar looked toward the door. Another beetle crawled in underneath it. Then another. And another. The bugs all instantly crawled toward Keplar.
The dog jumped up onto a chair and aimed his gun at the blood-sucking pests.
“Yup. There are more of them.”
Keplar fired his gun at the invading bugs, blowing them to pieces. But more kept coming from the hallway outside.
“C’mon, Scatterbolt,” the robot said to himself, staring at the computer screen and studying each line of code. “Figure this out. They need you now more than ever.”
In the main lobby on the ground level of the skyscraper, Strike and Orion fought through the crowd of urgently exiting partygoers and made their way outdoors. The street and park around the skyscraper were filled with hundreds of people, all of them murmuring and confused about what was going on inside.
“What do you think it could be?” Strike heard one of them ask.
“I don’t know, I think it was a gas leak or something. That’s what I heard.”
“Why do you think they told us to stay where we were, and then the fire alarm went off?”
“I don’t know, I’m sure it’s nothing. They would tell us if it was something to be concerned about.”
Strike turned to Orion. “You think anyone saw us running out of there with all these boxes full of hard drives and stuff?”
Orion looked around the park. Thanks to their disguises, they were still safe. “No, not with all this commotion going on. Just try and stay inconspicuous. I’m going to go get our getaway car. It’s gonna be hard to get to because of this crowd. While I’m doing that, you go find Keplar and Scatterbolt. See if you can get them on our earpieces yet.”
Strike handed Orion his box of documents. “Okay. I’ll head around the back.”
“Get them, and meet me at the extraction point near Hancock Street as soon as you can.”
“Got it.”
Orion ran off one way toward the getaway car, while Strike ran off in the opposite direction. Hundreds of partygoers were still leaving the skyscraper and dispersing into the Boston Public Garden, but Strike was the only one running back toward the building.
“Now,” he said to himself, “if only I can finally get through to Keplar on this stupid earpiece.”
On the top floor of the Trident, the Daybreaker stood at the repaired, floor-to-ceiling window in his office, looking out at the crowd of people and firemen gathered below him in the park. Minutes ago, the Daybreaker had just started to recover from his latest procedure, but now the alarm had been sounded and the building evacuated.
Behind the Daybreaker, Nova entered the office. He tried to hide the urgency in his voice.
“Daybreaker, I can assure you that—”
“What the hell is going on out there?” the boy said, spinning around.
“It is just a minor security issue, and we are dealing
with it as we speak. It is nothing to—”
“Why do I feel like everyone is lying to me?” the Daybreaker asked. “What is going on here? Is this something I need to take care of?”
Nova stood in the doorway. “No, no, sir. With your illness you need to be here and resting. We have the suspects cornered and we are resolving the matter now.”
“Who are the suspects? Is someone here who shouldn’t be?”
“We’re not sure yet, sir. But we know it can’t be Orion and the others, because there is no way for them to get through the Dark Nebula. Whoever it is, they came from the inside, and they will not escape. We have no reason to believe—”
“Is everyone out of the building? Are the people of the city safe?”
“Yes, sir. They were all evacuated and are being moved away from the building now.”
Angry, the Daybreaker turned back to the window. “Fine. As long as the people are safe, I’ll trust you and Rigel to take care of it. I don’t want to have to get involved.”
“Yes, sir. I will keep you updated.”
As Nova closed the door and exited, the Daybreaker watched the massive crowd of partygoers in the park below the building. They quickly parted and moved away from the building as another truck of firemen arrived on the scene.
However, one person didn’t move away from the building. This person was separated from the crowd, and they were actually walking toward the building—almost running—around the side of the structure and toward the skyscraper’s rear entrance.
The Daybreaker stepped toward a telescope in his office and peered into it. Looking down, he could see that the person heading toward the rear of the building was a green-skinned teenage boy. The green-skinned boy was talking into an earpiece, and pushing it into his ear.
The Daybreaker turned and exited the room.
CHAPTER TEN
“I can’t keep this up much longer!” Keplar shouted, standing on the chair in the basement, surrounded by an army of flesh-eating beetles. One of the bugs was clamped onto his ankle. He blasted it off, but seared his thigh in the process and burnt his blue fur. “More and more keep coming through!”
“I’m almost in!” Scatterbolt yelled, his eyes dashing around the mainframe computer screen. “It’s just this code—I’ve never seen anything like it! The more I try and get in, the more it fights back! I’ve never seen code as strong as this! It’s absolutely fascinating!”
Keplar spun around and fired at a beetle that was crawling up the backside of the chair. “Well, that’s great Zuckerberg, but I’ve got some things of my own I’m dealing with here, so if you can hurry it up, that’d be awesome!”
“After all this, we have to get what we came for!” Scatterbolt said. “I’m almost in, I think I’ve got it...” The robot quickly jabbed at a few final keystrokes, and the computer screen became clear. “I got it, I got it! Oh my god, I got it!”
“Great, SB, now download that krandor and let’s get out of here!”
With his robotic fingers shaking, Scatterbolt opened a compartment on his chest and retrieved a small, black hard drive. He hooked the hard drive up to the mainframe by wires and began downloading.
“That was insane,” Scatterbolt exhaled, finally sitting back in his chair. “Do you understand how hard that was?”
“Probably about as hard as being bit sixteen times where the sun don’t shine by mechanical bugs with teeth the size of small daggers.”
Scatterbolt watched the progress bar on the computer screen. “Sorry about that. But the download is almost done, I promise.”
Keplar leapt from the chair and landed on a desk in the middle of the room. “Why aren’t they attacking you?”
“I can only guess they’re programmed to only attack organic matter.”
Keplar kicked away one of the maniacal beetles. “Well, that’s great. I hope you’re enjoying the show over there.”
“As scary as they are, they are pretty fascinating.”
“Say ‘fascinating’ one more time, and these won’t be the only robots I’ll be shooting.”
Scatterbolt’s hard drive beeped.
“Okay, we got it! Now we just have to get out of here!”
Keplar looked around the room. There were no windows, and the door they came through wasn’t an option. “How are we gonna do that? These bugs keep coming in from out there, so I can only guess some other people are out there who’d also really like to hurt us.”
Scatterbolt looked up. Then he retrieved the blowtorch from his chest compartment. “Well, if this thing can cut through the Dark Nebula, I’m pretty sure it can cut through the ceiling.”
Keplar grinned. “Get cutting, kid.”
Finally reaching the rear entrance of the skyscraper, Strike walked toward the glass doors, but there was a small crowd of newspaper reporters there, and the security guards were not letting anyone inside. Dozens of waiters and scientists were still evacuating the building and gathering on the sidewalk.
“Crap,” Strike said. “There’s no way I’m getting back in there now.” He pushed the button on his earpiece. “Keplar, Keplar, can you hear me?”
Keplar’s voice crackled through the static. “Yeah, I got you now, kid.”
“Finally! What the hell was all that grinding noise before, I could barely hear you?”
“Well, we had a visit from some not-so-friendly termite-beetle things, but we’re out of there now. Scatterbolt cut us out through the ceiling and we’re heading out a window on the first floor. Where’s Orion?”
“He should be at the extraction point by now, waiting for us.”
“Good, you get over there as fast as you can. The baddies think we are still in the computer center, so they won’t be following us. Just get to the getaway car.”
“Got it!”
Strike ran off through the streets of Boston. Even though everything around him had been replaced with something Rytonian, he still had a good idea of where he was, and he knew he wasn’t far from the getaway car. If he hit the northern edge of Boston Common and kept heading down Beacon Street, he’d be there in no time, and him and his friends could escape and get away back to Capricious.
However, then he ran by an alley, and something caught his eye. As he passed the darkness in between a pair of brick buildings, he could see someone standing in the alleyway, looking out at him. Stopping himself, he turned around and carefully walked back to the alley.
The Daybreaker was standing in between the two buildings, with his fists at his sides. He was wearing his silver armor, with its blades running down his arms and its red markings along his ribs. But, he was not wearing his helmet, so Strike could see himself staring back at him.
“Oh my god,” Strike said, stepping toward the Daybreaker. It was the most bizarre sensation the boy had ever experienced: only twenty feet away, there was an exact duplicate of himself, looking back at him. The same dark hair, same thin build, and same dark brown eyes. Strike felt his knees buckle and his mind begin to swim, as if his brain could not handle what he was seeing. For a few seconds, it was beyond comprehension, like he was looking at a life-size video screen or having a strange dream. Except, Strike knew it was none of those things. Another version of himself—a perfect mirror image from a different timeline—was staring back at him.
As the Daybreaker stood there, unmoving and with his eyes pinned on Strike, Strike began to focus, and he was shocked to see the physical state of the Daybreaker. His skin was sickly and pale, as if he had not been in the sun for months, and the deep circles under his eyes were purplish-black and extended all the way down to his cheekbones. He looked the same way Strike’s uncle had looked, when he was dying of lung cancer, in the last days of his life.
Strike waited for the Daybreaker to say something, but there was only silence. Hoping he himself would
be able to speak through the shock, the boy took another careful step forward.
“Um...hi,” Strike said. “What are you—what are you doing out here?”
“Who are you?” the Daybreaker asked.
Strike was surprised. “What?”
“Who are you? I know you’re not a Rytonian. I know you’re in disguise. Who are you?”
Strike thought it over. He realized he still looked like the Rytonian teenager. Reaching into his pocket, he pushed the button on his faker. The hologram faded away, and he was once again himself, dressed in his Strike uniform.
The hero reached up and pulled down his mask, showing his face. “I’m...listen, I don’t know what you’ve been told, but—”
“Who are you?” the Daybreaker said again, his face suddenly filled with anger.
Tobin stood up straight, taken aback. He pointed to himself. “I’m me, this is me. I need to talk to you and—”
“Who are you?” the Daybreaker shouted. “I told you to remove your disguise, and you just replaced it with another one! Who are you?”
Tobin stepped into the alleyway. He was having a hard time concentrating, due to the bizarreness of the situation. “I’m not—I’m—this isn’t a disguise. This is me. I’m the same as you, I can explain if you—”
Now the Daybreaker stepped forward out of the alley, his fists clenched. “What is your name? What is your name?”
“My name...is Tobin Lloyd. Just like you. I’m the same as you. Listen, something terrible has happened, but I can explain and help you if you—”
Suddenly, the Daybreaker screamed and charged toward the street. “Arrrrrrggghhhh!”
Tobin moved back, readying himself. “No, listen, you don’t—”
But the Daybreaker swung at Tobin, his armored arm glowing with white fire, and Tobin was only able to grab his bo-staff from his back at the last second and deflect the blow. The hero was knocked backward, but the Daybreaker was completely unaffected. With insane speed, he swung his fists at Tobin over and over again, his knuckles erupting with white bursts of flame each time he connected against Tobin’s staff.
