Replication: A Kid Sensation Novel (Kid Sensation #6)
Page 34
Mouse placed a sympathetic hand on my shoulder. “I know, and I agree that something has to be done about him, but I don’t want you going off half-cocked or trying to carry out half-baked schemes.”
“Well, we may not have time for full-baked ones,” I countered. “The powers he has now, including the Bolt Blast and super strength, coupled with a callous disregard for life, make him infinitely more dangerous than we ever imagined.”
“Then maybe the plan needs to be to take those powers from him.”
“You mean like with a nullifier?” I asked.
“That’s one way,” Mouse replied.
I shook my head. “Forget it. He’s clairvoyant, remember? You’ll never get him within a mile of a nullifier.”
“But you said he can only see the initial threat in any given situation.”
I pondered on this for a second. “So what are you saying – attack him in some other way first and make the nullifier the secondary threat?”
“Exactly,” Mouse said with a smile. “The only question is, what should the initial threat be?”
“From what I understand, it can be anything. A shotgun, a grenade, a rocket launcher…”
Mouse laughed. “How about we focus on something a little less likely to do damage to life or property?”
“Like what?”
Mouse shrugged. “I don’t know. Jack’s based on you. Aside from a nullifier, what would you consider a threat?”
“You mean other than death or being put into a permanent coma?” I asked sardonically. “Probably anything that would cause the permanent loss of my powers.”
“Hmmm,” Mouse mused. “I think we can work with that.”
Chapter 83
Typically, Mouse’s plans are above reproach. His tactics are usually strokes of genius, his stratagems the best path to success. That said, I was not enamored with the plan he came up with pertaining to Jack. Frankly speaking, I hated it.
Not that the plan itself was bad. As with all of Mouse’s ideas, it was actually pretty good. The problem was what it required me to do: Mouse’s plan necessitated that I get the crown.
The crown was exactly what it sounded like: a bejeweled coronet that I had worn while on Caeles. Unlike its Terran equivalents, however, my Caelesian crown also had internal components that were designed to send minute electrical impulses into my brain in order to help me quickly learn the Caelesian language. However, the villainous Caelesian prince Vicra had rewired the crown to track the neural pathways used when I activated my powers, and then used the information to develop a neural blocker that stripped me of my abilities. Although I eventually regained my powers, I had treated the crown like a poisonous viper ever since, keeping it constantly under lock and key.
And now, despite my personal misgivings, I had retrieved my royal coronet and had it with me in Mouse’s lab.
“Are you sure about this?” I asked for about the umpteenth time as Mouse took my crown.
“Yes,” he answered, sounding exasperated. “But I’m happy to go over the plan again if it’ll make you more comfortable.”
“Sure,” I replied.
“Okay, once more,” Mouse muttered. “I’ll use the crown to develop a neural blocker. Since Jack is a replica of you to a large extent, the neural blocker should work on him, although I may tweak it to give it a broader range to account for any minor differences that might exist. We’ll use the neural blocker as an initial threat, which Jack will see through precognition and avoid. We’ll have a nullifier set up as a secondary threat, for lack of a better term, which he shouldn’t be able to see in his future, and we’ll use it to trap him. Got it?”
“Yeah,” I said with a nod, “but why do we have to use an actual neural blocker? Can’t we just use a placebo and pretend that’s what it is?”
Mouse shook his head. “From the way it’s been described, I think Jack’s ability homes in on legitimate threats, and a placebo wouldn’t fit into that category. So if we use a placebo…”
“It won’t be viewed as a real danger,” I concluded, finishing his thought as my mentor trailed off. “At that point, the only true threat will be the nullifier, and at that juncture it will represent a seminal event, which Jack would be able to see in his future.”
“Now you got it,” Mouse intoned. “And that’s why the neural blocker has to be real.”
“Well, why can’t we use a gun or something? Wouldn’t that work?”
“With his super strength, there’s no guarantee that bullets will hurt him. And if he can’t be hurt by it, his precognitive talents may not peg it as a threat.”
“Which brings us back to using the neural blocker,” I said in resignation. “Okay, so what can I do?”
“Nothing, in that regard,” Mouse confided. “But I have another task for you.”
“What?” I asked, eager to help.
“I need you to find your evil twin.”
Chapter 84
Mouse was right. It wasn’t going to do us any good to have a plan for stopping Jack if we didn’t know where to find him. Moreover, for obvious reasons, Mouse thought I was the best person to figure out where he was holed up.
Personally, I thought it was a tall order. Being a teleporter, Jack could be anywhere, and he’d already shown he was crafty. On those forensic shows on television, they always use things like dirt on someone’s shoes or fibers from their clothing to pinpoint an individual’s location or movements, but we didn’t have anything like that here. That being the case, I wasn’t even sure where to start. Still, I teleported to my quarters at HQ to noodle on the problem, flopping down on the sofa as I considered everything I knew about Jack.
To be perfectly honest, I didn’t know all that much. Our interactions had been limited, to say the least, and had grown worse in terms of temperament with each encounter.
Moving on from when Jack and I had crossed paths, I thought about what I knew of the other places he’d been in hopes that they might offer a clue as to his whereabouts. However, there wasn’t much meat on the bone in that regard either. I could name a number of places he’d visited, but didn’t think they offered much in the way of insight: Vestibule’s park, my father’s mansion, League HQ, my grandmother’s embassy…
My thoughts suddenly shifted as I noticed a pattern in Jack’s behavior. He had seemingly teleported into three of the venues I’d been thinking of – the park, the mansion, and HQ – but had picked the lock to gain entry to the embassy. The reason for his different modus operandi at the embassy was obvious: he hadn’t been there before. With the park, however, he’d previously visited it with Vestibule prior to chatting with me there. Likewise, as to HQ – specifically the teen lounge – he had spoken to Smokey there prior to his run-in with the teen supers the previous day. But my father’s mansion…? When had he visited it prior to being gutshot?
The answer that immediately leaped out at me was my grandparents’ party. That was the best opportunity for Jack to have gotten inside Alpha Prime’s palatial home. Unfortunately, the security system was turned off that night (including the panic room monitors), so there was no video I could review for confirmation of his presence. However, there had been a photographer there – Matt Kroner.
Moreover, upon reflection, I recalled Kroner labeling me a “quick-change artist” when he took his picture of me and Electra. The comment hadn’t made sense at the time, but now it did. Presumably, at some point prior to taking our photo, Kroner had seen Jack – most likely in a different ensemble than I’d been wearing at the time. Had they spoken? If so, had Jack perhaps said something that could be used to track him down?
Feeling that I was onto something (but unsure of what it was), I jumped up, intent on locating Matt Kroner. It was a long shot, no doubt, but I didn’t have a lot of options or ideas (nor, at that juncture, a lot to lose).
Thankfully, running Kroner down wasn’t particularly difficult; it just took me calling one of the newspapers where he freelanced and asking how to get in touch with
him about his photos. Finding out where he actually was, on the other hand, came as a bit of a shock: according to the newspaper, Kroner was in the hospital.
Chapter 85
It wasn’t visiting hours, so I turned invisible in order to slip past the nurse’s station in the intensive care unit where Kroner was being treated. Upon reaching his door, I phased and went inside.
Kroner’s hospital room wasn’t completely full of cards and flowers, but had a healthy complement of them – enough to indicate that he was a nice guy and well-liked. Looking at him, it occurred to me that he needed all the well-wishes he could get. From all appearances, Kroner was practically in a body cast.
There was a space for his face, holes for his ears, and the top of his noggin was exposed, but otherwise his head seemed encased in plaster. Likewise for his neck and torso, as well as most of his limbs. About the only thing not currently wrapped and immobilized by casting material was his left arm and right thigh. He’d obviously had a serious accident recently.
He couldn’t move his head, but he glanced in my direction as I made myself visible. His eyes went wide in fright, while panic and alarm surged in him with blazing speed.
“Easy, easy,” I muttered, trying to keep him calm. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
My words seemed to have something of the desired effect, as his trepidation began to subside and the fearful expression on his face was replaced by one of confusion.
“Jure nah him,” he almost whispered between clenched teeth. It took me a second to translate his statement as “You’re not him.” At the same time, I realized why he seemed to be having trouble speaking: his jaw was wired shut.
Before I could respond, I heard the doorknob being turned. I immediately went invisible and floated up into a corner of the room. A moment later, an attractive, middle-aged woman wearing a nurse’s uniform stepped in.
“Are you okay, Mr. Kroner?” the nurse asked as she approached his bedside.
Kroner didn’t respond. Instead, he simply looked at the spot where I’d been standing a few moments earlier, frowning in concentration.
“Mr. Kroner,” the nurse repeated, “is everything okay?”
This time, the question seemed to snap Kroner back to the present.
“Yeth,” he replied to the nurse. He then held up his left hand, revealing a nurse call button that I hadn’t noticed before. “Thorry. Athident.”
The nurse smiled. “No need to be sorry. The doctor said you might experience some muscle spasms, so if you accidentally hit the button a couple of times, it’s okay. Let me know if you need anything.”
She then turned and left. A moment later, I floated back down and became visible again.
Kroner gave me a bit of a smile. “Thorry. I–”
Kroner replied.
I nodded but didn’t say anything immediately, as it had occurred to me after I asked my question that Jack might also have used his clairvoyant abilities to figure out where to find Kroner.
Kroner scoffed.
Chapter 86
It turned out that Kroner – having previously lost some photos due to technical issues – now made a habit of regularly copying photos from his camera to his laptop. Moreover, while his camera had been pulverized, said laptop (which was in his bedroom at the time of his encounter with Jack) had escaped the same fate. It was currently in the hands of the friend who had come by to clean up his place after the attack.
After that, it was just a matter of getting Kroner to call his friend on my phone and convince her to give me his laptop. It was a little dicey with his jaw being wired, but in the end – with Kroner’s blessing – she agreed to meet me in an hour and hand it over.
>
I then tried to use my healing power on him. After all, it had just saved Gramps when he was banging on death’s door with a battering ram. Surely it could help Kroner, who wasn’t anywhere near that condition. Much to my chagrin, however, it did not work.
Humbled by my failure, I thanked Kroner again for his help and then left.
*****
The meeting with Melanie went off without a hitch, and an hour after the call with her, I had the coveted laptop in hand. Still unsure of whether it held anything of value, I teleported to my quarters at HQ. Taking a seat on the couch in the living room, I opened up the laptop and pulled up the folder containing Kroner’s pictures (which were, thankfully, grouped by date).
Turning to those from the party, I began quickly sifting through the photos, of which there were hundreds. Kroner had obviously worked hard to earn his pay, and he clearly had a good eye. Many of the pictures weren’t just frame-worthy – they were good enough for commercial advertising.
For instance, one pic of a kid reading a book in my father’s library could have been used in any effort to promote literacy. Another photo of a man and woman dancing while looking lovingly at each other could have graced the cover of any romance novel. An image of a group of friends having a toast at the bar seemed tailor-made for plugging a New Year’s celebration (or something similar). In short, Kroner’s talent was probably wasted doing freelance work.
Staying focused on the task at hand, I kept my eyes peeled for any photo containing my doppelganger. It took about ten minutes, but I finally located one. It was actually a picture of my grandparents, standing close with their arms around each other – with Jack basically performing a photobomb in the background, giving the two of them a fixated stare.
And just looking at it, I knew with almost certainty where to find him.
Chapter 87