The Strike Trilogy

by Charlie Wood

  “Vincent has won, Tobin. This is it. Even though he is gone, Vincent has won. Everything you fought for, all Orion fought for—it was for nothing. All those that died—Titan, your father—they should have known Vincent’s vision for this world would become a reality. Earth’s fate has been written in the stars since the dawn of time. If they had listened, so many lives could have been saved. Including yours.”

  Rigel flung Tobin up into the air, toward the Common. As the boy fell down toward the ground, Rigel opened his palm and blasted him with one last, long, scorching stream of blue fire. Even after the boy hit the earth, Rigel held the flames on him, blasting his body with the unrelenting energy for over fifteen seconds. Tobin could only scream, and writhe his contorted body on the green ground, waiting for the pain to end.

  Finally, Rigel hovered up into the air. Far above the red giant, the domed ceiling of the Dark Nebula slowly began to open, allowing the night sky of Boston to be seen for the first time in months, through a hole not much bigger than Rigel.

  “I’m going now, Tobin,” Rigel said. “To spread my new world across this one. Boston was only the beginning—with the power I have now, I can level mountains with the blink of an eye. I can rebuild cities, from the ground up, with a simple wish. I no longer need the Dark Nebula to hide behind. Your world cannot contain me. They cannot stop me.” The giant looked up at the ceiling of the Dark Nebula, then down again at Tobin. “I am the Daybreaker.”

  Rolling over, Tobin looked up, his vision blurry. Far above him, thousands of feet away, he could see the hole in the Dark Nebula’s ceiling that Rigel was floating toward. Soon, Rigel would be out in the open world.

  “First the United States,” Rigel said. “Then Europe. Then Asia. Then it all. The past glory of Capricious will be remade. What was gone will return. Long live Vincent Harris. Long live New Capricious.”

  From the ground, Tobin watched as Rigel rose up and through the hole in the Dark Nebula, out into the stars above. From that height, Tobin knew, the red giant would be able to see all of the areas surrounding the city spread out before him. The giant was now free to bring his destruction and fire across the rest of the Earth.

  With his chest rising up and down, and his breath wheezing, Tobin tried to roll over but found that he could not. He stayed lying on his back, looking up at the stars through the hole in the black-and-purple dome. Even with the new powers revealed to him by the Daybreaker, Tobin could barely move. His arms only trembled when he begged them to reach for his staff, and his legs wouldn’t answer him at all, his cries for them to stand going unheeded. Behind his mask, the boy could feel blood running down out of his mouth, and the vision in one of his eyes was completely gone from Rigel’s attacks. Looking down at his body with his one good eye, Tobin saw that Rigel’s axe had cut a massive gash through his pant leg. Through the gash, Tobin could see a flash of white bone.

  Dropping his head back against the ground, Tobin turned back to the stars, and he saw that the twinkling objects were beginning to fade away. A dark circle all around the boy’s vision was encroaching on him, shrinking what his eyes could see and filling the world with darkness. Everything was fading away, including the sounds of the park—the only noise Tobin could hear was the weak exhalation of his own breath, trembling out of his open mouth and into the air above his face.

  Tobin knew this was the end. From the first moment he had decided to give up his old life and become a superhero, he had always known the end could come at any moment, and now it was here. But, as he lay there, on the grass of Boston Common, one sentence kept repeating itself in his mind, over and over: it was worth it.

  It had all been worth it.

  Looking up at the fading stars, innumerable and faintly shining against the darkness, Tobin began to think of all the people he’d met over the past year.

  Orion, at the supermarket where he worked, on that strangely warm October night.

  Keplar, in the grassy field on Capricious, only a few feet away from the massive, dead carcass of a red-colored dinosaur.

  Scatterbolt, in Orion’s library, where the little robot had excitedly told Tobin all about the history of Capricious.

  Thinking about his friends, other memories began to flash in Tobin’s mind, replaying themselves like old home movies:

  The first time he used his powers, standing next to Orion in Gallymoora, fighting off the Hoplites.

  Laughing with Keplar in the museum’s training room, driving Orion crazy when they were both supposed to be practicing.

  Staying up all night with Scatterbolt, as the robot did his best to teach the mathematically challenged Tobin to play 7-Card Stud, right until the early hours of the morning.

  The car chase through the streets of Boston back in May, the night of his prom, when he had only just learned to drive the transforming Bolt Racer.

  Meeting Adrianna.

  Kissing Adrianna, in the hot spring in Zanatopia.

  Getting to know Wakefield and Junior, in their repair shop in the Never-World, with all their crazy inventions and robotic machines.

  And his father.

  My god, his father.

  Tobin’s greatest dream since he was five years old, the one that was the most impossible, had come true: he had met his father. And, no matter how brief their time had been together, Tobin cherished those few fleeting moments just as much as any other moment in his life, perhaps even more. As the boy lay there now, with the stars shining above him, he thought about his mom, and how much he wished he could have told her all about that moment—sharing with her what it was like to meet his father for the first time, and telling her everything they had spoke about.

  Then, suddenly, the words of Tobin’s father rang through his ears.

  “As crazy as it sounds, I grew to love times like that. When life kicks you in the teeth and sends you in a direction you had no idea you were going, and you have no idea how to get out? I love times like that. Because it’s times like that when you find out what human beings are really made of. You find out how strong you can be. Times like those? You find out you are capable of things you never could have imagined.”

  Tobin’s eyes flashed open.

  No.

  He wouldn’t give up.

  He couldn’t. Not now. Not ever. He would keep fighting. Like Orion and his father had taught him. He would keep fighting.

  Gritting his teeth and groaning, Tobin rolled over onto his stomach. Pushing himself up by his arms, he rested there, with one knee on the ground and both his hands flat and pressed against the dirt.

  Tobin had to get higher into the sky. That’s all he told himself, over and over: he had to get higher. He had to follow after Rigel. Even though the red giant was thousands of feet in the air above him, in the sky over Boston, Tobin had to go after him. He had to reach him somehow. He had to chase him. He had to stop him. He had to reach the hole in the Dark Nebula. He had to get higher. That was all he told himself. That was the only thing that mattered.

  He had to get higher.

  Grimacing and kneeling on the ground, Tobin flung his head back to the sky, letting out a scream and moving his neck from side-to-side, closing his eyes. He could feel it—a burning, starting at his neck and stopping at the top of his back. All of his electrical power was being funneled to that one spot, across the back of his shoulders. The boy could not feel his superpowers in his hands, arms, or legs. The electricity was only in his shoulders.

  Then, suddenly, as Tobin grinded his teeth together and closed his eyes, electrical wings sprouted from his back, ripping through his costume and his cape. Extending out from his shoulders, the massive, bright, pulsing wings were snapping with vigorous, twisting, purple electricity. The purple wings looked like the wings of a skeletal bird, as they were not covered in feathers or skin—they were made of only simple bone and snapping, cr
ackling strands of electricity.

  As the boy flapped his new wings, his feet left the earth and he began to rise up toward the hole in the Dark Nebula. With his head flung back and his eyes pinned on the sky, his electric wings were giving him the lift he needed to soar high above the city. Leaving Boston Common behind, the boy rose higher and higher, with the purple wings from his shoulders sending streams of air rushing down to the ground behind him. Considering the sudden and stunning manifestation of his new power, Tobin’s mind was surprisingly clear. He was only focused on reaching Rigel.

  Above the top of the Dark Nebula, thousands of feet above Boston, Rigel floated in the night sky, surrounded by his cloud of blue electricity. Looking out over the buildings, trees, and hills that stretched out for hundreds of miles, the red giant now only needed to make a simple choice: where to start? Should he finish what he started, in the cities and suburbs surrounding Boston, or should he soar straight to the heart of the country, to Washington, D.C., where the current leaders of the United States could see with their own eyes who was replacing them?

  But then, as Rigel watched the twinkling buildings below him, he heard a pulsing, buzzing sound coming from behind him. It sounded like a combination of the humming of an electrical generator, and the repeating, rhythmic whoosh-whoosh-whoosh of a bird’s wings.

  Rigel turned around. He found that Tobin was now in the sky with him, with purple, electricity-covered wings extending from his back. The boy was using these skeleton-like wings to hover in place, directly across from Rigel, and his eyes were completely white. As they stared at each other, both Rigel and Tobin floated above the domed top of the Dark Nebula.

  “How did you…?” Rigel asked, confused. “What are you doing?”

  Blue electricity snapped across Tobin’s arms. “I’m doing what I was going to do since all of this began: I’m stopping you.”

  Rigel shook his head, trying to ignore Tobin’s new power. “It won’t matter. Nothing you do will stop me. With the power I have now, I can destroy this world and rebuild it into New Capricious at any moment I want. Vincent’s dream is here. And it’s here because of the power that was meant for me.”

  Tobin flapped his wings. “Yeah, funny thing about that power: you stole it from me. So, I’m no expert on all this, but I’m not sure how something you had to steal can really be meant for you. I’m pretty sure that just makes you a fraud. But, again, I’m no expert.”

  The blue electricity streaking across Tobin’s body began to grow in intensity. Rigel watched, afraid, with his eyes wide and darting around Tobin.

  “No, Tobin,” the red giant said. “You can’t do this. This is my right. This is what I deserve. This belongs to me. This is my destiny.”

  Tobin flew higher into the air, flapping his wings above Rigel.

  “There’s no such thing as destiny,” Tobin said. “Nobody tells us who we are. We make our own future. We make our own choices. And your choices have led you here.”

  Tobin raised his arms in front of him and extended his hands down toward Rigel. They snapped and burst with raging, blue-and-white electricity.

  Rigel held up his hands to defend himself. “No, Tobin, you can’t, I—”

  Tobin unleashed all of his energy. A massive, twisting, snapping stream of blue fire and white electricity exploded from his hands, traveled across the sky, and into Rigel. The red giant was overwhelmed, with his legs flailing in the air and his arms beating against his chest as he tried to free himself. But he had nowhere to run. His entire body was now swarmed with the raging, fierce, deafening electricity stream flowing from Tobin’s hands. All the giant could do was thrash his head back and forth and scream.

  “Rrrraaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhahhhh!”

  Finally, when Tobin had exhausted nearly all of his electricity, Rigel stopped moving. As the boy lowered his arms and looked downward toward the dome, he saw that Rigel was now simply a motionless body, floating in the air, his eyes closed. All trace of the red giant was gone, and it was replaced with the thin, human body of Marcus Drake, which was nearly lost in the oversized green-and-black uniform of Rigel.

  Then, as Tobin watched, confused, a burst of white electricity appeared in the middle of Marcus’ chest, before spreading out across his body like a spider-web. Eventually, the web of white electricity covered Marcus’ body entirely and shrunk in on him, contracting itself, until it caused a blinding, sudden flash of white light and thunder. Even from above, Tobin had to turn away from the explosion in the dark sky. But, when he looked back, Marcus was gone. And, therefore, so was Rigel.

  However, as Tobin looked out over the planet Earth below him, all was quiet for only a moment. The Daybreaker had been right: Tobin’s powers went so much further than he knew, and suddenly the boy could hear voices from all over the world. It was as if he was everywhere, all at once, in tune with all the energy of the Earth. In Boston, he could hear people saying there was activity over the dome. In Paris, an elderly man was talking on the telephone to his son, discussing his fears about the invasion in America. And in China, news reporters were breathlessly discussing the latest news bulletin that a hole had appeared in the dome in the United States.

  It was too much for Tobin. Too much power, too much information, and too much vision. Soon, the boy’s eyes rolled into the back of his head, his limbs went limp, and he passed out, collapsing in the night sky and floating back down toward the hole in the Dark Nebula.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Finally reaching Boston Common from over three miles away, Orion, Keplar, and Scatterbolt ran into the park. They looked around, but Tobin and Rigel were nowhere to be seen.

  “What the hell?” Keplar said. “Where’d they go?”

  “This is where Tobin and Rigel were?” Scatterbolt asked. He had just returned from safely bringing Jennifer and Chad back to Capricious.

  “Yes,” Orion replied, “right here. They couldn’t have gone far. Where would they have—”

  “Look!” Scatterbolt shouted, pointing to the sky.

  Orion looked up. Through the hole in the Dark Nebula’s ceiling, Tobin appeared, drifting slowly down to the earth. His body was motionless, his eyes were closed, and his purple, electrical wings were still there, limp at his sides. Even though he was falling, it wasn’t at a great speed—every few seconds, little pops of blue electricity were slowing his body down as he floated to the ground.

  “There he is!” Keplar shouted.

  The dog and the robot ran toward where Tobin was falling.

  “What happened to him?” Scatterbolt asked. “Why isn’t he moving?”

  Orion followed them, staring up at Tobin.

  “He’s all right,” Orion said, confused. “I think he’s all right.”

  When Tobin’s body finally landed softly on the ground of Boston Common, the blue energy around him faded, and so did his purple wings, which dissipated into the air like static electricity. As Orion, Keplar, and Scatterbolt reached the boy, he was still unconscious.

  “Tobin,” Orion said, kneeling next to him and squeezing his arm. “Tobin, are you okay? Are you all right? Can you hear me?”

  Slowly, the boy’s eyes opened, and he looked up, blinking at the blurry figures above him. His mind was a little fuzzy and his hands were tingling, but surprisingly he felt okay. His injuries no longer caused him pain, and his wounds appeared to be healed. Mostly, he just felt exhausted.

  “I just had the strangest dream,” Tobin said. He pointed to Orion, Keplar, and Scatterbolt. “You were there, you were there, and you were there, too.”

  Keplar let out a massive sigh and rolled his eyes. “Oh, thank god. He’s alive.”

  Orion helped Tobin sit up. “What happened, Tobin? Where’s Rigel? Where’s the Daybreaker?”

  “He’s gone,” Tobin replied, shaking the fuzziness from his head. “Rigel’s gone.
They’re all gone.”

  “What?” Orion asked. “What do you mean? Are you sure?”

  Tobin leaned back and stretched out his arms, closing his eyes and cracking his back. He was so tired. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  “Did you have wings, by the way?” Keplar asked.

  “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I did.”

  “Holy krandor.”

  “That’s what I was thinking.”

  Nearby, Scatterbolt stood with his head arched back toward the ceiling of the Dark Nebula, his eyes looking up through the hole and out into the sky. He had a big grin across his face.

  “He’s gone,” the robot said. “They’re all gone. This is over. It’s over.”

  The little robot jumped into the air, with both of his fists raised over his head.

  “Whoooooo-hoooooo!” he shouted, celebrating with relieved, exuberant glee.

  As they laughed at Scatterbolt’s enthusiasm, Orion gave Tobin a hand and helped him stand up.

  “Tobin, these readings I’m picking up,” Scatterbolt said, walking over to them. “These energy levels—I’ve never seen anything like it. Nobody’s ever seen anything like it. What the heck did you do?”

  Tobin leaned on Orion, exhausted. “To be honest, I’m not sure. Rigel was up there, about to escape, so I...I...”

  “You did what you had to do,” Orion said with a smile. “You never gave up.”

  “No,” Tobin said. He smiled back. “Even though I really, really kind of wanted to.”

  Orion laughed and hugged Tobin.

  “Okay,” Keplar said, looking over the decimated Boston Common. “Captain Loony-Daddy-Issues is gone. We won. But now what? Look at this place. What do we do now?”

  “I don’t know,” Orion replied. “But the good news is we have plenty of time to figure all that out. I think we should go back to the museum, come up with a plan to clean this place up, and then come back here in the morning before the Nebula dissipates, so we can start getting everything back to normal. Or at least as close to normal as we can get it, anyway.”